Redefining Identity Through Cross-Cultural Lens - Mental Health Series Pt3

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Key Takeaways:

• Importance of Community Engagement: Engaging community members in creating mental health services ensures that these services are relevant and effective.
• Power of Connection: Authentic connections within the community can provide profound support and help individuals feel less isolated in their struggles.
• Role of Culture in Mental Health: Understanding the cultural context is crucial in providing effective mental health support.
• Holistic Approach to Well-being: Addressing mental health involves looking at the whole person, not just diagnoses or labels.
• Intentionality in Support: Offering genuine support requires being present for others without trying to fix their problems.

Notable Quotes:

1. Judy Saba: "One thing I believe in is that we need to look backwards in order to be able to move forward."
2. Lisa Makhlouf: "People that are hurt hurt others, just like healed people heal others."
3. Eddie Reaiche: "What really does define us is not a condition. It's not whether we've got this or we've got that. Nothing really defines us because we're a person of multiple parts."
4. Lisa Makhlouf: "Knowledge in action is power. If you're doing something with that knowledge, there is power."

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Transcript

0:00:04 - (Debbie Draybi): Welcome to finding sanctuary. Our shared conversations into how we think and feel and how we find peace and comfort in daily life. We get together with experts to chat about all things mental health, getting insights and understanding on the struggles of life. My name is Debbie Draby, and I'm a psychologist and a proud maronite woman and a mother of three children. And I'm passionate about bringing people together to share their stories, to support each other through life and all this beauty and all its pain.

0:00:32 - (Debbie Draybi): I look forward to hearing from you in this podcast series as we engage in conversations around our shared experiences as a community. We love to hear what you think of the podcast. So please subscribe, share like and comment wherever you get your podcasts. Well, welcome back, everyone. This is our final episode, episode three in our series around mindfulness and well being. And I know, listeners, you've all agree that Eddie did a wonderful job hosting God never, even though he's had to do a bit of trauma therapy with him afterwards.

0:01:11 - (Debbie Draybi): But yeah, look, he kept the seat nice and warm and cushy. So I've come back in quite reluctantly, and we're going to try and build that muscle and that practice to share, to share the experiences, because we all bring a new insight and a new energy. So thank you, Eddie. So today we've got a full house coming back together. In our final episode in this series, I've got Eddy, my co host, and Lisa McLuf, who joined in our first episode around mindfulness.

0:01:38 - (Debbie Draybi): And of course, Judy Saber, our cross cultural psychologist, who had a wonderful conversation with Eddie around psychology and some of the journey and the services in developing services for our community. We had some beautiful conversations around your experiences, particularly you, Judy. You know, as one of those founding members. I know. I just want to say, you know, you've been instrumental in my career and my learning and my journey. And I was working with the maronite community as an intern, and you supervised me and really engaged my thinking around understanding not just our community, but also myself. And I just, yeah, it's been a wonderful journey. And Judy's getting quite emotional now, so she's gonna make me cry.

0:02:22 - (Debbie Draybi): But yeah, we've had lots of tears and lots of joy coming together, thinking about listening to the last conversation around those experiences, how they taught us so much about reaching to the community to guide us, to develop something that reflects not what we need, but what we need as a collective community. And I'm thinking about, you know, drawing on that wisdom from the past and learning from what we learned and those experiences, what we can take to now, as we build services at the Hill sanctuary house. We just want to be guided by the experiences from our past. And I'm wondering from you, Judy, you know, some of those key considerations that we need to take into the future, especially with the new and emerging challenges that we have as a community.

0:03:06 - (Judy Saba): I think the one thing that I really believe in is that we need to look backwards in order to be able to move forward. And we had such a privilege back then of having an environment where we could try things and we could make mistakes and we could be accountable in those mistakes and still create incredible service as it was back then. And I am aware that the service doesn't exist in the same way at the moment. But there is hope for this, because there'd be a number of things that I think are critical.

0:03:35 - (Judy Saba): One is to bring the community reps or members of the community as part of that initial dialogue in building a service, because it's not about what we can do for them, it's what they decide is important for them. It's about making it contemporary so that the issues are not issues that we shy away from, that we can actually ask for their lead on the sorts of things that the community's pulsing about.

0:04:00 - (Judy Saba): Because we sit here, we have our families, we have quite a bit of privilege, we're safe, we're ok. We're in a country where there's no current war, but we have a community that's bleeding in many ways, in ways that people around this table may never understand. God willing, we don't ever understand it, but we need to hear it. And so to build on that, to start with, what the community understanding what psychology is, what support services are, to identify that it's not just youth, but we have an ageing population that's crying out for help.

0:04:30 - (Judy Saba): We have a lot of elder abuse that's occurring not because people intend it, but because they don't know to go to get help. And we've got a whole range of things that are happening because of the pressures. If you ask me today, what is the most important pressure at the moment? It's the cost of living. And that creates tensions in so many ways. So to have our finger on the pulse and to have community sentiment upfront and guiding everything we do, but then also to have external governance, to have people outside of our community that are prepared to go, oh, why are you doing that?

0:05:03 - (Judy Saba): And for us to be accountable so that we understand why we're doing a program or a service in the way that we're doing it to also know that we also legitimately have access to external support to do these things. Government services don't know we exist in many ways. And I remember back when we set up the initial service, we were doing it, you know, on the smell of an oily rag. But when we put in for that first grant, you know, we got accolades for it and it got funded and we thought, oh, wow, you know, people might actually want to support this.

0:05:35 - (Judy Saba): But also knowing that the issues that we face, and I truly believe this, and I say it with absolute respect to our community, that there should be nothing that we can't talk about in a respectful, mindful and safe way. And that's kind of really important in building it and having people who are motivated by the three centres of intelligence, by their head, their heart and their gut, what feels right, and allowing space for them to be professional and non professional people.

0:06:02 - (Judy Saba): Because I can tell you, with the Friends of Friends project, as I said in the previous podcast, it was those non professionals that taught us so much about what really matters.

0:06:12 - (Debbie Draybi): Thanks, Judy. And, you know, really strong message there that we need diversity of perspective, diversity of life experience and skills to come together and build something that reflects all our needs. Just as we're building a church, we're also building a community. And that's been our key message in this podcast. For those of you that are disconnected and want to reach out, want to be part of things, we're really called to you to join us, to come and be part of these conversations, but also to come to the activities and the workshops that we're building around these conversations as well, because that really does support and continue to build what we understand, but also we learn so much from it and it helps us design the future for our community.

0:06:56 - (Debbie Draybi): And Lisa, as you're listening, what's some of the thoughts around as we build the services for the future for our community?

0:07:03 - (Lisa Makhlouf): One of the things I love about the maronite community, I think one of the many strengths it has is we do look out for each other. That hospitality, that generosity to bring people in, it's such a beautiful part of our culture. And I think when we come to these things, to these workshops, and when we commit to our own healing, it's another way of being generous to each other, because people that are hurt hurt others, just like healed people heal others.

0:07:29 - (Lisa Makhlouf): So the more people can work on what's happening within them, then they're more able to hold that space and to really be present, to really have those hard conversations you're talking about Judy, where you can come with that open heart because you have nothing to defend. Just like if a stranger showed up at your door or the neighbour came in, you would give them lebanese bread, you'd send the plate of tabbouleh, and you'd have a laugh, and you'd have your arms wide open.

0:07:58 - (Lisa Makhlouf): We can do that in such a deep and profound way because we know how to do it on that level. Once we've healed within ourselves, we can embrace each other. And I think if we look at it as something that we can do for others, that's another motivator. Everything we do, when it's attached to a purpose, it flies much further. So drawing upon that strength and that desire to look out for one another, then we can heal each other, because our healing is reliant upon each other's healing.

0:08:31 - (Lisa Makhlouf): We can't heal in isolation because we live in communion with each other. And so when we realize that our healing is wrapped up in the other person's healing, then we can come into a place that's really open, really loving, and really willing to work together.

0:08:52 - (Debbie Draybi): You know, that strong message around what we do that's foundational to our culture and our communities coming together, particularly when we've talked about it in other podcasts. We do that so well in celebration, but also in crisis where we need each other, particularly during these difficult times. We had a conversation in our last podcast around the financial pressures and how alienating that can be and thinking about how can we draw on the strength of coming together and supporting each other because we are stronger together.

0:09:21 - (Lisa Makhlouf): That's right, yeah.

0:09:23 - (Debbie Draybi): And Eddie, what about yourself sitting here? Now that you've recovered from your hosting trauma, what are some of the things that sort of come to mind for you in these series that you want to.

0:09:34 - (Eddie Reaiche): The first thing comes to mind is, why am I always third when the good ones talk first? And then I feel so intimidated, and then I've got to say something that sounds smart and it never comes out. To tell you the truth, I've been listening to everything that was said, and I love our community. I want to give as much as I can to the community, but it's not about me. It's a community that needs so much, they don't know how to ask for it.

0:10:01 - (Eddie Reaiche): And that's one of the biggest problems because they go outside and no one really understands them. They go to a psychologist or they go to a doctor or they go to somebody else and they say, oh, you've got this problem or that problem, and then they come to mass and then their relatives tell them, if you're strong in your faith, you don't have to see anybody. And they get so confused and so lost. And I really feel for them. And I think what we're trying to do is create an opportunity.

0:10:28 - (Eddie Reaiche): People can come somewhere where they're not judged, they're not told anything what to do. We're just there to listen and to say that you're in a safe space and you can say what you want and it doesn't matter. We won't judge you just because you say, I feel this is wrong. This is how I was brought up. We're not there to judge your upbringing. We're there to help you try and get through what you're going through now as a counsellor and what we're trying to do now. And now, as I see my clients, particularly in our community, which I really love, I just find that. But every time you see somebody new, just that expression on their face where they feel like I've now been heard for the first time, I get emotional and I'm trying to hold it in to be professional and sort of say, yep, but that's okay.

0:11:15 - (Eddie Reaiche): I'm happy to hear what you want to talk about. And this is your space and you can say what you want. I'm not here to judge you. I'm just here to listen. And sometimes that's all they need to, you know, sometimes they just want to say, am I crazy? And you just have to say, if you're crazy, then so am I. And so that's how we part. Sometimes it's sometimes simple, sometimes it is complex. But we're there for no matter what it is. So that's how I see it.

0:11:44 - (Debbie Draybi): I think about how powerful the conversation is. You know, when you're in a group where you feel that trust and that connection. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling this incredible energy between us and it's bringing back parts of myself that I've forgotten about. Almost just re engaging with people and how it can really open us up and help us to rethink things that we might be stuck with. That's been playing in our head. You know, Lisa, you talked about the stories we tell ourselves and being able to change that by telling those stories out loud and being able to have someone be a sounding board and to maybe challenge them or to check in a bit about what that sounds like.

0:12:26 - (Judy Saba): You know, Deb, I was just thinking, well, Lisa and Eddie. Eddie, I didn't forget your name.

0:12:32 - (Eddie Reaiche): What a great impact on me.

0:12:36 - (Judy Saba): I forget names. Remember? I was thinking about, you know, the stories my mum used to tell me when she first came to this country and when everything was centered around the church, everything you lived, where the church was, you know, the church was the one that helped you find your first house, whatever it might have been. But the person she had the most connection with was someone who didn't even speak her language.

0:13:00 - (Judy Saba): And I think that's kind of what I'd like to see into the future, that we're just creating connections. Her and misses white, that lived across the road, she would put the rakui on every day. Mum, she would invite misses white for coffee. Misses White didn't speak Arabic. Mum didn't speak English. But they would connect and they would talk. And that's where mum used to go when she felt she needed support.

0:13:21 - (Judy Saba): And I think that's the other thing that's important, that if we can create that point of connection, whatever level it's on, then we can do anything with each other and for each other and beside each other. So I think it's all about connection. And that's what I would hope, that any service that grows out of the toil and the hard work of so many people, and I'm talking here, the community. The community that bought the loungers, that paid for the computers, that made sure we had extra chairs in the room, that made sure we had soundproofing, that all came from clients, that didn't come from funding, that came from people who donated it.

0:13:58 - (Judy Saba): About how do we create spaces where connection can be formed, whatever it is, and not just necessarily between us, but between each other.

0:14:07 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. And I know in the community there are spaces already where people are coming together. Monsignor's talked to us about the men's groups. And Eddie, you've also mentioned the groups that you have at St. Joseph's. Thinking about some of those, if you are part of them, how to bring others in, particularly those that might be bit worried about joining because they maybe feel like they don't belong or they're not good enough, or they don't have what it takes to be part of the group.

0:14:35 - (Debbie Draybi): These are the conversations we need to be having around how do we bring that diversity within our community and bring in people who are struggling to feel like that this is their place, too.

0:14:46 - (Lisa Makhlouf): I mean, those groups are fantastic. And they also can be quite daunting. So maybe it's about having a coffee with someone. Just come, let's go have a coffee. And it can be really simple, or you're already meeting up with somebody and you think of somebody else and think, do you want to join? You know, these are just little ways that we can build connections and be with each other, you know, in a real simple way or calling. Been thinking about you. How you going? You know, you've been on my mind.

0:15:15 - (Lisa Makhlouf): It doesn't have to be really fancy.

0:15:18 - (Judy Saba): That's the magic that happens in our community when we do give people space. Those spaces are about being in the moment, you know, and learning to listen, not talk.

0:15:27 - (Lisa Makhlouf): And what I'm hearing as well is the intentionality behind that. It's, again, being with somebody and where they're at. Unfortunately, in our western culture, we want to win and not lose. We want to be young, but not age and die. We want to, you know, have the answers, not be confused and without. But it's in those moments, they're real. That's a part of our human experience. If you are breathing, you will suffer.

0:15:55 - (Lisa Makhlouf): You will love all the things that we experience. And so if we can tap into that within ourselves, then we can be a space and a sounding board for others and their pain and not wish them to the next step, or not google the diagnosis or to just only send the text message, or only to come together in a really organic, genuine way that our parents would have and our grandparents would have. Walking in the village, you know, saying hello to each other, you know?

0:16:26 - (Judy Saba): Exactly.

0:16:27 - (Debbie Draybi): So what I'm hearing is this distinction between looking for information and sharing an experience. You know, they're two very different things. You can always get information off the Internet about what you might be going through, and you can check the symptoms and get a label that you can put on it. Whereas, however, when you come together and talk to people, it's beyond just the labels and the diagnosis. It's about understanding how you're experiencing something.

0:16:55 - (Debbie Draybi): And it includes all the human experiences, the easy ones, the difficult ones, the ones that we find, you know, really challenging to talk about.

0:17:03 - (Lisa Makhlouf): That's right. And, you know, we often say, like, knowledge is power, but it's not. Knowledge in action is power. If you're doing something with that knowledge, there is power. But just to know something, it just sits. You just have it. And if you've learned something, there is also, I think, a responsibility in terms of our shared humanity to offer that back. Once you've learned something, once you've gained something or healed or had someone be there for you, that can be reciprocated.

0:17:36 - (Judy Saba): And, Lisa, the way you've described that is that it's different to fixing it for the other person.

0:17:40 - (Lisa Makhlouf): Absolutely.

0:17:41 - (Judy Saba): And I think that's really the message here, isn't it? That when we do go to those people in our. I'm sorry, I keep using the word ecosystem, but I can't find another word that says, the people that I've chosen to have in my life that you may never know about, councillors will never know who's really in people's lives. You know, it's that it's really being able to.

0:17:59 - (Debbie Draybi): It's your people, your tribe, it's your.

0:18:01 - (Judy Saba): Tribe, it's your tribe, it's your day.

0:18:07 - (Lisa Makhlouf): And that can be really hard, particularly with parents, when it comes to your children, because often you have in your mind your hopes and dreams and fears for them and they get in the way of actually being with them and who they are, how they've come into the world, their journey, which will be totally different to yours, you know, and how do you hold that? And you can grieve that if it doesn't match what you wanted or what you had hoped for, but how you don't let it get in the way of still connecting with the child you have.

0:18:39 - (Judy Saba): Absolutely. You know, my dad passed away at 104 and, you know, up until 104, he still thought I was becoming a lawyer, you know, he never lost that dream, but he never discouraged, connected with what I was doing and the values that he placed on that, you know, and I think that's exactly what this is about. How do we. How do we as a community, reframe our own community and our own perception of our own community?

0:19:06 - (Judy Saba): Because it's hard enough with the world out there that makes assumptions about our community, per se. I'm talking broadly lebanese, not just Maronite. It's an ongoing kind of voice of resistance in many ways, where, you know, where it's not only what do I believe about me, what does my family believe about me, what do I believe about my family? And what does the brighter community think about our community?

0:19:27 - (Judy Saba): And so, you know, young people, people at our age, people that are older, are not just living in isolation and, you know, this ecosystem, again, we never can know the bit that I give to you, Debbie, about me or the bit that I share with Lisa or with Natalie or with Eddie. Eddie. Oh, my God. I tell you what, I should never have talked about purposely forgetting names. You may never come together to create who I am, but all of you will have a bit of me.

0:19:59 - (Judy Saba): And that's the bit that I find exciting, really exciting and really challenging. And when we say we know that you have people that you love and care that you go to. Where do we fit?

0:20:12 - (Eddie Reaiche): I think it's really important that we take on board that what really does define us, it's not a condition. It's not whether we've got this or we've got that. Even if it's diabetes or whether it's a medical problem or a psychological whatever it is, nothing really defines us because we're a person of multiple parts, not just one part. And if we just focus on the one part, we lose sight of the real person.

0:20:37 - (Eddie Reaiche): And I think it's important that we take the whole person, which is like a whole heap of things. And a lot of them are under the surface, and a lot of them are quite beautiful. And if we miss it, we miss out on a great.

0:20:52 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, thank you. It's just been a really inspiring conversation. And for me, it's, you know, being able to demonstrate the power of coming together and starting conversations and seeing what emerges. We came to you unscripted and, you know, we always end up having these beautiful conversations that take us to places that we never anticipated. So I'm wondering, just as we finish up, whether you had some parting wisdom that you'd like to leave for our listeners some key messages that you think would be really useful for them to hear as we wrap up the session.

0:21:25 - (Eddie Reaiche): Currently I'm reading a book called in the Realm of the hungry ghost by Gabel Matei. And in there was something that came out that was so profound, and it said that people fear three things. One is death. The second thing is other people, and the third thing is their own mind. And I think taking that on board and making me think about it, you can read into it as much as you like. But I think that was existential in a lot of ways on how you can think about it. But I think that would be my parting wisdom for today.

0:22:00 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. Lisa, did you have any messages that you'd like to share?

0:22:04 - (Lisa Makhlouf): Richard Rohr says this famous line that most people don't see things as they are, they see things as they themselves are. And we do over identify with who we think we are. And when we let go of that, that's when the richness can happen. And when we over identify, we over identify with being a hard worker, or we over identify with being a mother. That's usually when we find we meet burnout, or we over identify with being a great psychologist, or we over identify with being a great sister, a great daughter, a great son.

0:22:39 - (Lisa Makhlouf): When we're over identifying with one particular part of ourselves, we then meet burnout. And so holding all the bits of yourself and allowing knowing you to have space and time for all those bits means you can do it for someone else. Like I said earlier, healed people heal others. So the more to go in and really expand who you are through prayer, through whatever practice that makes sense to you, means that we can grow together, not in isolation.

0:23:13 - (Judy Saba): And, Judy, do you really think I'm going to be able to have one?

0:23:16 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, you can have many. You've got time.

0:23:19 - (Judy Saba): I think for me, you know, there's been a few words that have really struck again. And the most important thing is an awareness of what we bring to that interaction. What am I bringing into this space that is mine? My assumptions, my biases, my expectations, my judgments, and holding those really close and stopping them from taking a primary role. I know, Lisa, you mentioned knowledge, and I have a phrase that says knowledge on its own, out of context is noise.

0:23:47 - (Judy Saba): So it's an awareness of what I bring, of the implicit and explicit assumptions that I bring to my interactions. Knowledge of that person in context, in their words and from them. Their meaning about them, not my meaning of them. Yeah. And then somewhere in all of that, the skills to be able to do something with that. We talked before in one of the other podcasts about a muscle. Every skill as a counsellor is a trial and error. I truly believe that.

0:24:14 - (Judy Saba): And to practise the things of being able to ask our questions in a way that aren't invasive, of drawing on what people tell us and reframing that, all of those really beautiful skills, but in a cross cultural context, also the ability to understand words, because many of the community, particularly those that aren't born here, will tell us things in a language and in a space that we may not have, connecting words for, and that's really important. So it's an awareness of what I bring knowledge about that person from their perspective, and the skills to be able to tell them what we can, what we can't, and what we will and what we won't do.

0:24:51 - (Eddie Reaiche): Wow.

0:24:53 - (Lisa Makhlouf): What about you, Debbie?

0:24:54 - (Debbie Draybi): What about you, Debbie? I have lots of thoughts going on in my head and I just want to share the main one. For me, what always resonates coming together with you all, is the power of connection and reminding us of our experiences that we've shared. I know we have a long history together, and one of the things that, as you're talking, particularly Judy, I think about my first few experiences as a junior trainee psychologist, how daunting that was.

0:25:22 - (Debbie Draybi): But also working in that cross cultural space. You know, I went to a maronite school, so I had quite a limited experience and exposure to the world. And you were instrumental to me in helping me navigate that. You gave me permission to be different in a world where sameness and that pressure to be the same and to be conformed to the maronite way and the lebanese way was really difficult growing up.

0:25:48 - (Debbie Draybi): I guess for me, the message out there, the importance of connecting with each other, but also connecting across the generations. Don't limit yourself to just your peer group or your age group or your profession, because that gives you a very skewed perspective of the world. And I learned so much. And I think the biggest lesson for me in my interaction with you, Judy, was permission to be whoever I wanted to be and to create that in a safe and nurturing way. And I mean, to me that was so grounding, and it's been instrumental in who I am today.

0:26:24 - (Debbie Draybi): I know I'm going to make you cry, because I always make you cry. But yeah, that's been a huge life lesson for me, because when we isolate ourselves, we limit who we can become. I guess that's one thing that I always say to my children. It's important to expose yourself to the world, not just the security of a small community. That, yes, does nurture you, but also can blindside you from who you can be.

0:26:57 - (Debbie Draybi): I hope this episode has helped you find sanctuary in this exciting journey of life. All of the resources we've mentioned in this episode are found in the podcast notes. If you need some assistance with any of the topics discussed in today's episode, then please visit our website, hshl. If you have any thoughts, comments, or ideas, please leave us a comment on Spotify. Alternatively, send us an email at admin sshl.org.

0:27:27 - (Debbie Draybi): dot au dot. You and your mental health matters to us, and we hope you get one step closer in finding sanctuary. Bye for now.