Season 2 Episode 4: Eliana Ah-Rum Ku and Amira Ayad

In this episode, we talk with two of our contributors to the Spring issue of the Canadian Journal of Theology, Mental Health, and Disability about their pieces that focus on women, depression, and faith.   

Eliana talks about her lived experience of postpartum depression and how she navigated this journey while being a part of the Christian Korean and Canadian-Korean faith communities and how lament became a part of how she processed her experience.

Amira talks with us about her work on the "Heroine's Journey" and how women from the Muslim faith tradition who have lived experience of depression can co-create with others in their faith communities to find joy and healing.

Read their pieces here: https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cjtmhd

Watch on Youtube with closed captions here: https://youtu.be/1TbCnFsKchI

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Transcript

Welcome to the Mad and Crip Theology podcast we're so happy that you're here this afternoon um to join us and Miriam my faithful co-host is away today so my friend Wendy Cranston has so graciously agreed to come on and be here with us today so hi Wendy! Hi hello. So um we are so excited to have Amira and Eliana joining us today so I'm gonna ask you both to introduce yourselves if you don't mind.

So um so the introductions that we're wondering if you could give us are to give your name your pronouns your work and academic locations currently um your connection to mental health and disability your connection to the Journal um and also to give a visual description of yourself so what you look like what you're wearing um for the folks who are listening to the podcast.

Do I start? Amira yeah sure! Okay so my name is Amira I'm born in Egypt Alexandria Mediterranean and I'm originally a pharmacist who turned into natural health looking for answers that big pharma doesn't offer I had my PhD in natural health and then I decided to study the missing link spirituality and theology and and and in my master of pastoral study at Emmanuel college and currently I work at Scarborough health network I'm a spiritual care practitioner.

My connection to the journal um maybe I started I consider myself storyteller and mixed media artist I'm obsessed with art journaling and art quilting and I for a year for some years now I held a women's retreat called Healing with Art and Stories and I guess from this retreat was born the idea of the paper that I published in the journal so the journey of women and use of art and connection with the body to to achieve the transformation. My visual description I am middle eastern so I'm I'm not white and I'm not exactly brown so I don't know what color exactly I am. 

I have greenish-blue eyes I wear glasses I wear the headscarf hijab and I'm wearing a blue shirt and bright yellow cardigan I might have scarves the same colors and I love colors and matching colors and this that's basically this is what I'm wearing.

Amirah thank you very much Eliana would you like to introduce yourself? Yeah actually um it is the hardest!

Why what should I do? My name is Eliana Ah-Rum Ku, I'm in Korea I'm Korean definitely and

I am awarded Ph.D. in homiletics at Emmanuel College last summer and my convocation was definitely mid-May this May. Congratulations! Thank you so much finally yeah but I couldn't attend because I'm physically in Korea um and I am a mother of two children um my daughter is um teenager and my son is yeah also teenager but he's in grade school anyway and

my uh yeah my academic location and I did and yeah and my connection to mental health and disability journal I recently published

an article about um postnatal depression and foot washing in lament language so yeah I am very excited to um converse with um in podcast and um oh my visual description yeah I also love colors but I'm wearing black church because because 2 am right now!

And I'm wearing glasses to screen um what is it the blue radiation from computer so it looks like you know dragonfly is it yeah and yeah quite um quite quiet around me because everyone is sleeping yeah that's me thank you.

Well thank you so much uh Eliana for staying up this late to talk to us we really appreciate it and if if we see you nodding off we'll we'll do a little dance or something to wake you up um and we want to say how much we just appreciate your contributions to the spring issue of the journal and um so the first question that we want to ask you both relates to uh when Miriam and I usually think up the questions we tried to think of um similarities between people's pieces and we were thinking how how similar there were similar themes in both of your papers that you wrote this idea of the context of women and also issues around depression so we we wanted to ask you so this question is for you both so you both uplift the significance of women's experiences of depression and we wanted to ask you can you tell us if depression is normalized in your faith communities or how this might become so? So Amira I'm going to invite you to respond first. Um okay so well I I don't think it's fully normalized it's still a stigma uh it's i i there are a lot of advanced advancement on how it is now people can talk more about it but still it's still seen as lack of faith lack of gratitude even the the woman that uh herself feel guilty and ashamed and feels that she's not good enough if she has some form of depression and what's interesting interesting thing also i i recently noticed that medication has become to some extent normalized so it's there they talk about i'm taking medications they don't call them antidepressants they're just uh medication and uh maybe the brand name but not the word depression itself is not fully acknowledged and but the use of medication although it is good i'm of course i'm not against medication in any way but it's good that it's um it's normalized but at the same time it i've seen it that it is used as some form to avoid dealing with the depression itself to avoid engaging life and sometimes even reenhance in enforcing the the victimhood mentality of the woman so it becomes easier to pop a pill than to dig deeper or deal with emotion or make some change in life so yeah unfortunately so it's still a lot of work to be done in the community.

Well thanks that's really helpful and um so what are some of the things that you think Amira should be done to help normalize depression you're talking about like uh calling calling the pills what they are that might help you know yes yeah and what else what else comes to mind? Well I I guess we're always maybe as spiritual care or psychotherapists or even doctors it have been with some time talking as the expert in the field but now I see that we are now within the people talking about our own experience our own struggle our own life challenges so having this some form of self-disclosure making this safe space so everyone can talk about it's a normal thing and it's not but again not falling into the victimhood mentality again it's just this fine line between normalizing it but in same and and talking about it talking about your experience in the same time I'll open a safe space for the woman for the one to to talk them to share their own experience. Thanks so much Amira yes and I'm sure some of a lot of the work that you're doing um at the hospital provides that safe space for women to talk about this so so thank you so much for that work that you're doing and uh Eliana what about you um is is depression normalized in your faith community in Korea?

Um

the communities I have experienced are Korean Canadian immigrant churches and and Korean churches these churches these faith communities are similar yet different because sometimes Korean ministers agree that um the culture of the immigrant church has the value of you know the time that you know the dominant um dominant generation when the dominant generation left Korea in other words I'd like to say that

the values of Korean church can be a little more um flexible and open to change so um that means uh like it you know the normalizing depression depends on cultural characteristics but in the same culture like Korean culture there's some kind of you know variation variations and differences um so in um you know in Korea it is a culture that makes it you know virtue a virtue to be patient rather than talk to another like ask for help when um people meet um difficulties although this culture may vary according to the inclination of social relationship group or individuals but still Korean children learn that it is good to have some tolerance for pain physically and mentally so um yeah from I um also in Korea it seems that um the mentality of mothers like especially mothers is not managed at the national level when I was in when iIwas living in Vancouver i was surprised to learn that a friend of mine who were who who was pregnant was getting kind of regular check on her mental health from uh some you know a Center i don't know exactly what Center was but yeah he she has some kind of support but um from my experience there is no support at the national level so yeah in that kind of background in the face community little awareness and little like recognition about depression.

And Eliana you're talking about there about how there's a there's like um a prioritization or like there's a um an uplifting of tolerance of pain in the culture do you think would you equate that tolerance of pain to like um uh normalization of suffering or is it more like uh like um sorry my brain's not working like um thinking that suffering is a part of a woman's journey and it's something that people might praise them for this suffering?

Or or not?

You know uh maybe bearing their cross or taking up their cross is there any of that? Uh it's um

um quite complicating of course because you know many situations and operations are mixed and multi-layered so in culture especially Korean culture we have three main religious traditions Confucian Confucian culture and Buddhism culture and Christian culture and um based on um

yeah based on shamanism so

quite mixed up in in that culture to understand suffering especially for women it's not um quite normalized to open up to the public for men it is more hard you know it is harder to express their suffering but yeah for women um it's hard to because it's not a social virtue the tolerance is a social virtue to

yeah they're suffering. I see, I see okay. And so uh what would you say I mean obviously your your paper that you submitted for the journal that talks about um postnatal depression and is a one way that we can help to normalize uh depression in the community because we're talking about it like Amira said we're opening up the space and we're saying this is something that a lot of people experience um so writing about this talking about it getting it online is so important is there anything else that comes to mind about how depression can be more normalized in the community for you? Yeah for me like using using lament language in solidarity like I uh when I suffered from depression it was quite severe um I wanted to feel like some kind of a sense of connectedness

I was I think I was isolated very isolated from family um faith community and other you know friendship um recently one of church members has complained of severe depression her depression to me it was such a difficult situation um she had you know

some kind of thought about a suicide assault several times so so it was quite similar yeah she didn't want to any counseling help I you know the cultural situation and she wanted she didn't want to you know open up her situation to others, especially in face community and she wanted to get through it uh herself so while she felt um as she spoke with as I spoke with her was in our community depression is not recognized as a loss of health

depression is very subjective and it's it's um it's severeness cannot be measured so that is why when someone shares uh with their community that they are depressed it is treated more lightly than um you know the being physically hurt so um when I um talked with her what I realized was uh she and I um no I mean our community know our depression is making our lives and our souls are so much um

being hurt and losing our you know identity and personality you know everything and we found like we crave constant attention a sense of connection as I mentioned before

so uh in that sense uh the lament language is really really necessary to deal with suffering and you know mental health physical and physical suffering as well uh let me um take an example the reason I started lament as my academic uh journey was because I was I experienced a sexual abuse I was a sec I am a sexual abuse survivor I have been through a very long time of pain and it has led me to lament

the reason I uh talk about my you know trauma revealing my vulnerability makes um quite big differences to share and to participate in others' pain

so the mutual mutual lament can be practiced when we open up our pain trauma and vulnerability um honestly.

Thank you Eliana for sharing that and I I totally agree that sharing our pain and you know bearing along with others on our journeys is so important so we're just so glad that you're here today sharing with us so thank you I think wendy's gonna ask our next question!

Um Eliana the next question is um is for you and I think that it's uh carry on of the conversation that we've been having um you said in your author's note that when you experience postnatal depression after having your two children you received no help from your faith community thinking back to that time what would you have wanted them to do for you what would you have wanted them not to do for you?

Yeah especially language was important to me like as I mentioned before like someone uh likely say it's gonna be okay it's very normal and uh you need to like endure or God will heal you something like that it's kind of you know quite uh fantasy world for me because my reality and is quite far from what they said so um you know how people kind of saying was not helpful definitely not helpful to me instead of that kind of wording lament language was very helpful to me just some friends lamented with me sometimes in silence sometimes in crying that was more helpful to deal with my suffering

um and uh for me um in my situation I was so young I I am pregnant I was when I was pregnant I was only 24 and when I delivered my first baby I was 25 I don't know I was younger but I felt like I was young so I was the first I was the first person who pregnant and to deliver the baby among people around me so there is no resources to get some help and my parents at that time worked and my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law uh had no kind of interest interest about my depression so I was so you know isolated also I was a part-time pastor in my faith community and my social location I think prevented to open up my depression to the public

because you know I feel like I have to be faithful and I I have to be strong something like that so I don't want to show my vulnerability to say my faith community.

Did you find this is an unscripted question but I'm gonna ask it anyways um and I'll own that I'm asking it because I'm relating to a lot of what you just said about the young pregnancy and the baby and the being the pastor and the social location and and the having your family as part of your faith community but also trying to keep that sort of professionalization of your role as pastor while also being a mom and that

that wanting to sort of while your family is being a part of your church sort of integrates your professional and your personal lives but at the same time you want to keep that level of professionalism as a pastor and that um like how do you create a balance then about what is happening with your

with your life? And the like and that level of postpartum depression and how do you receive any support from your faith community?

Yeah yeah definitely I failed to get some balance my depression verifies that yeah that kind of my failure yeah I I couldn't get um too real about it because I want to be professional but I couldn't

so I decided to um when I delivered for when I pregnant my first baby I decided to quit the job yeah I couldn't endure and

when I delivered my second baby um I kept my career but um I don't know why but uh for me working continuing working helped me to sustain depression I don't know why but I did

How did your um how did your experience with the with postpartum depression help your sense of discernment about vocation oh oh that's a hard question maybe just something to consider not necessarily something to answer oh my God!

I've never thought before

because under the depression I could not control my emotion and I could not control my daily life even even carrying my two kids so I think at that time I could not you know managing or acknowledging anything what was wrong or what was good

yeah and

yeah okay sorry! No sometimes sometimes questions are to tuck away and consider not answer thank you very much for sharing Eliana yeah Amy iIthink the next question is yours. Yes thank you so much so this question's for you Amira and um this one's about something that you said in the abstract of your paper uh that you wrote for us and we're hoping you could unpack it a little bit for us so in the abstract of your paper you state quote in modern western culture it seems as if Muslim women are subconsciously internalizing their own oppression and disciplining their actions and choices to comply with the norm that their male-dominated community has defined unquote so we were hoping you could unpack this a little bit for us, especially for our listeners who may come from a different faith tradition would you be able to explain a little bit about what this means? Sure oh thank you and uh yeah I got into trouble for writing that we get into trouble here we like that so you're among friends!

So most Muslim communities are still patriarchal community we cannot deny that yet living in a western culture gave women a lot of agency and freedom that it's available for them we cannot ignore that but I see in most cases with the women that I encounter either in the community or client that the actual pressure come from the woman herself she internalizes the beliefs that she's not good enough she's not strong enough or she's not smart enough or worthy enough or God will be upset if God forbid she did something different than what is intended or what is she has to do or as a strict

I wouldn't say religious but more cultural norm that is defined for her so it having to make these changes in her life and make her own choices become a struggle and in many cases either she just resigned to not doing any changes or she assume a victimhood mentality again like uh what is uh Martin Seligman called the learned helplessness so it just as i mentioned earlier like popping a pill or use some form of spiritual bypassing and internalizing this belief that I cannot do it I cannot change anything and I cannot tell you how many times I heard women blaming themselves for their own depression it's like saying I should be more grateful I should be I should have more faith and belief and women accepting sometimes different form of abuse and stating that what God decrees and I should be content and look at other women in the war zone area or whatever so I should be grateful for what I have and yes we should be grateful of course but this doesn't mean that I cannot change or do some form of transformation in my life and if a woman start actually to make this change I see again in most cases that there are other women who put her down it's not the man or other women from the community uh they're putting her down or discouraging her and it's it's like um you know when this bucket of crabs when when we have crabs in a bucket and and one crab tried to climb the wall of a bucket to escape and all the crab that crossed straight start to pulling pulling pulling it down uh and it's fun watching it in the crab world but when you see it in in actual women do doing to each other it's sad so it's um so the pressure come from from the woman themselves from within herself and from the women community around her unfortunately most of the cases that i've seen.

I think that's really helpful and I I guess that's a follow-up question iIwant to ask you do you think the crabs are always going to be stuck in the bucket do you think that or do you think that um you know one crab will get out and then we'll grab on to another another crab and what do you think about the bucket uh well talking about sharing stories I did escape the bucket so it wasn't easy and it wasn't pretty but it's um it's doable I've seen so many women doing it and it's not about being rebellious or uh rejecting tradition or religion or even culture it's about just uh having your own voice and be assertive in in your way and making your own choices so it's some people gonna like it some people want and that's okay yeah yeah that's that's awesome I I wanted to just ask you but one term that you used just before about spiritual bypassing can you tell our listeners what that is in case they've never heard of it before? So spiritual bypassing is like using uh the spirituality or or religion to to to by bypass your hurt your uh your wound and saying yeah that yeah I'm uh this is gonna uh wipe away away my sins or this gonna make this what God decrees so and I'm grateful and again it's it's we all believe that or in my mind we believe that if you have go through suffering it's just God gave you reward for that and and you should be grateful for anything and we don't deny this part but spiritual bypassing is when I use this to stay into my uh situation that it's uncomfortable situation and I don't do anything to try to change it and and this is what is not meant by by religion basically it is not what is recommended I think.

Yeah that's so helpful thanks Amira I'm sure um any any of our listeners who whose attention was peaked by that you could do um some more research on spiritual bypassing so thank you so much and I think Wendy's got our next one

So we were wondering if you folks wanted just to take a few minutes to talk to each other and um and what questions you have for each other either based on reading each other's papers or the conversation we've been having so far.

Yeah actually I have five questions!

Too many right?

Your paper was so intriguing and you know I'm not familiar with Muslim culture and religious Muslims so yeah it was very you know fascinating I was yeah I was wondering is there any God image to support women's journey of transformation?

uh sorry what does cause cause image to support like women's journey of transformation is there any

even image from from the from the religion it's I'm the religion yeah um

well in many the stories or the uh the example most of them are male uh the the protagonist of the story is usually male there are few images uh of female but in the um the histories uh Islamic history there are lots of women

who have this uh we can call them a role model that achieves this transformation and achieved some some sort of in their life and in the community unfortunately we don't highlight this uh as much we don't use this as much as we use the uh the regular stories that we are used to or the Prophets or the and and maybe I uh relate to what you said in in the beginning of your paper that it's the the role of the woman is more of uh

she's a mother or she's a wife or mother and it's not a woman in

to do a role actually change in the society or a woman is a reformer it's not highlighted as much

but certainly in history we have a lot of examples.

Thank you Amira is very helpful

Yeah and I also wonder about um are you pursuing kind of subversive um subversive action um of men dominated language and culture or co-creating the tradition of men dominated culture

what are you persuing subversive or co-creating?

Um

I'm not sure well I don't usually like to put things into boxes of specific uh way of of doing or seeing uh things uh so I I don't really uh so maybe I didn't think a lot about it in in this way and I believe it it maybe it will come more uh toward co-creating is like it's um it's not about a fight between a man and a woman or male and female it's more about we complement one another we help one another and we we we just can uh grow together or make this change together

if this answers your question much.

Yeah I was wondering yeah related to that where do you place um the concept of woman's transformation?

Like you know in relation to the man-dominated culture

Uh where I place the woman transformation I mean uh are the man um helping or supporting or is this your question? Um yeah where do you place um the transformation the concept of woman's transformation in in the relation to man-dominated culture?

Um

I don't I don't see it as separate

because it's um

as you said there are lots of ch- of variation within the community itself there are lots of men who are understanding who are actually helping this transformation and there are a lot of women who are on the opposite side there are they don't want anything to be transformed anything to be challenged so uh it's not uh it doesn't fit into specific uh pattern it's just a lots of it it's it depends on the person on the context on their own story so it's very personal for every woman her own transformation and I've seen women who are satisfied with with what the little change they get and they actually achieve happiness within maybe for for me I would a situation that I would not accept and but they they achieved their happiness they achieved it so they are happy they they are fine with it and other women who want more who want more change and more transformation on a bigger level so it's uh it depends on the woman herself on the community on the support she's getting on the mentality of the people around her so there are lots of difference within a lot of variations in every story so quite subjective concept. Yeah so do you are you using like the concept of moral agency to Muslim woman yes it's very important yeah the more you see it it's very important and again it's although there are some ontological beliefs are still subjective to every woman what she believes that is

the morality and the beliefs and the values that are most important to her with her her belief and her understanding and her own agency within this her own belief yeah and one more interesting thing uh when I read your paper um I could not recognize um the concept of um you know uh concept of lament or you know grief something like that how to deal with depression and you know social oppression violence onto women how to deal with this this is uh from the model it's a part that is the innermost cave or the belly of the whale this is a woman uh maybe I didn't use the same wording the the language of lament but this is basically what is meant to have this intimate conversation and intimate connection with God talking to God and having this uh like the like you said there's a language of the Psalms that it's it's you're you're talking to it's just it's uh pouring your heart out to God and and um showing your all all your vulnerability all your pain or your suffering and and knowing that he's accepting that and he is the one who can achieve this changing within you so this is a part with the where the we stayed a lot for most women we stayed a lot in this innermost cave we stayed a lot with this intimate connection and sometimes when we moved to other stages we still kept this as part of the practice or part of that it doesn't it doesn't change uh and for me I still have this this this part of my self-care it's it's always having this intimate conversation and talk with God yeah in in in in the case of lament lament has your relationship like with God and with public so when you mentioned about the cave and intimacy is there any other connection to other people around us? Yeah this is moving out when the the next step after the the innermost cave is a transformation when she finds her own voice and having this uh understanding of this uh balance between having their own voice and agency and surrendering to the Divine and sending this voice to Divine will and then come the road back where Joseph Campbell calls the road back and this is when she has to integrate back into the community and for some women could be the same community that she comes with and for other women they have to find their own community their own support where she can share her voice and be herself within this this community and like share her story and not be ashamed or feel guilty or having this uh assertiveness again to to to be herself so in Joseph Campbell model is resurrection occur when only occur when you have take this road back to community and integrate into the community because having your own voice and having your own agency doesn't mean anything if you stay in your home into your cocoon and do not share as you said it's uh it has this dual part you have to it takes a lot of courage of course to reintegrate back and with all your wounds with all your vulnerability and go back to this either find your way back in society again yeah from from my understanding your stages are not linear or circular right uh it's well for simplification I'm I make it into a cycle but it can be uh we can work on more more than one stage at the same time or we can go back into the stages and and

work our way back and then come forth so it depends on everyone and everyone's need and everyone's story how do we recognize we are transformed?

When the woman feel that she found herself found her voice this is me this is who I am and I am not afraid of sharing me and who I am and my identity

with with others so this is when's it transformed it doesn't mean that I solved all my problem and my life is like a fairytale now uh but it means like it's like it's an inner more of an inner transformation let's find myself finding my voice finding my true identity.

Thank you for answering! Too much! I hope it makes sense!

Amira do you have any questions for Eliana or any comments on her paper? Yes sure I am as you said Wendy I I relate a lot with the always Eliana's paper also it's um especially when you said I didn't know what was happening to me so this is exactly what I felt after when I had this postpartum depression is not a concept now we know it is it's called postpartum depression but at the time when I had my children 24 years ago it wasn't um it just and again I fell into the same trap of I'm not grateful I should be grateful I have everything that's lack of faith so I have to connect more more with God so I relate a lot to you to this part and um when also you talked about the socio-cultural norm that mother uh should be happy to be excited uh and this was not my feeling I yeah of course I have this this is having a baby is awe inspiring and it's a blessing and I'm very grateful but it comes with a lot of fear and it it doesn't come with this happy excited things so it's and also there is a hormonal mess in it so it's not uh there's a pressure on the woman to to to fit into this social cultural norm it makes sense yeah and I I found the approach of the foot washing is very interesting and  I love how you portrayed how a simple rite uh can make a huge difference and how you tied it to the biblical teaching of hospitality and the language of lament and and I think the middle eastern culture we have a ritual of foot washing but it's a women who do it for their husbands when they come back from work and it's uh it it is seen as at the end of the day when you come back to work so you're welcoming him with grounding and relaxing and honoring of course in in our time and they would don't do this ever i think at the time of my grandmother they used to do this was a normal thing for a woman to do to to her husband so it's uh it was interesting to see it in i never thought of it in the reverse

so maybe my my question uh would be I wonder if you uh took further or intend to take it further into practical application within the communities and the church and how does practical practical application look like whether in with this church community or at home is a husband involved and can can how can this be applied uh practically? and uh maybe a second question after. 

Yeah and I don't have any um dichotomy men and women but I think the sisterhood in that case um is quite valuable because you know um sometimes we had in certain difficult difficulties in certain cases we we want to find people who went through the same difficulties or similar difficulties so you know woman elders or you know mothers or girls all generation of a woman gather together and comfort her who are in depression postnatal depression or um like um experience some kind of missing babies including stillbirth something like that so um to deal with that kind of conversation for me

if there is a man you know I cannot fully express my feeling and fully express what happened to my body it is uncomfortable so yeah related to you know woman's physical body I think sisterhood quite valuable yeah to practice some kind of lament or something mature yeah I totally relate

And and I wonder if you encountered any resistance or rejection for the idea from the community uh for for now from from that no no I mean so far there's no rejections and so um I am a uh I am an uh writer and editor for uh what is this like uh worship order of my denomination um I put this litugry footwashing related to depression and um um missing what was that what was the correct word

miscarriage miscarriage and stillbirth I used lament language and foot washing to deal with that kind of suffering and other people loved my ideas yeah but I expect some kind of rejection that someone doesn't like to talk about her own suffering about a very personal thing yeah crabs into the bucket. Thank you. Well thank you both so much for sharing and we just have one question left uh that we ask everyone who comes on the podcast and we just want to know how do you take care of your soul as you're doing this work uh especially for both of you who are digging into some difficult topics um like depression so Amira what does your self-care look like you mentioned that you go to the cave and you talk to God as a part of your self-care is there anything else you want to share with our listeners? Uh well this is one one very important for me another thing is my art journaling uh it's it's a big thing it's um and when time and sometime when time gets harder I put for myself to do 100 day challenge where I do a page of art journal every day and recently I started daily joys so iIm starting to do pay one page a day about uh a daily joy that I find and um and this is it's I've been researching joy for some time now and I've been noticing that I what I call happy or joyful feeling is mainly feeling of content or gratitude so this is this fine line so Iwanted to learn or teach myself how to add more joy in my life so this is a doing so art journaling and one of the the thing I uh I found in in this journey that it was an 11th century muslim scholar described joy as sitting on three pillars one of them is the first one was anger which was very interesting for me that one of the first pillar of joy he defined as anger and and I felt this is the missing part so I'm using my art journal to explore this now and I notice that my art pages become more messy and chaotic and random as they come more messy chaotic and random my mind and my heart are starting to become more at peace so it is like if I'm I'm putting this uncertainty in fear and anger out there instead of doing them or putting them on the back burner in my in my mind yes another soul care for me is experimenting in the kitchen I have a little herbal apothecary and I love to play with herbs and spices and teas and recipes and my kids call it mommy's preparing her witch brew again!

That's cool!

Oh thank you. Thank you for sharing Amira. And what about you Eliana what's your soul care like? Um my soul care is just letting me have kind of a freedom to complain to God about my situation and anger at God sometimes crying makes me breathe so I usually let me immerse enough in my feeling let me down enough and um I usually do not find some kind of peace of some piece of joy but caring others helps me a lot.

Sitting with them and listening listening to their stories especially you know suffering experience and hug with them something like that.

Oh that sounds beautiful hugs are so good well we just want to say thank you so much for coming on and sharing your stories with us today I feel like it's been a real powerful time of sharing so thank you and uh are there any any last thoughts you want to share with our listeners before we go?

Yhank you for having us! Thank you so much!

Agree yes well you're so welcome and Wendy thank you so much for being brave and coming on and co-hosting the podcas. Your'e welcome, it was a real joy awesome okay well thank you so much everyone thank you!