Creating Safe Spaces for Difficult Conversations in a Diverse World - Leonie Nahhas

About the Guest:

Leonie Nahhas is a registered psychologist with an extensive background in community wellbeing, education, and mental health initiatives. She currently operates her private practice, ThriveWise Psychology, and has established the Illume Community Dialogue Forum, which aims to foster community dialogue and collective well-being. Leonie has worked in various educational settings and has spent time abroad gaining valuable cultural experiences, contributing to her deep understanding of human interactions and societal dynamics.

Key Takeaways:

• Encouraging Dialogue: Leonie Nahhas emphasises the importance of dialogue in addressing mental health challenges and promoting community well-being.
• Community and Empathy: The Illume Community Dialogue Forum facilitates community engagement, allowing individuals to understand differing perspectives and appreciate diversity.
• Parental Involvement: Teaching children to have healthy and respectful discussions is crucial for their development and long-term well-being.
• Cultural Considerations: Culturally aware dialogues can help break the cycle of internalising and suppressing emotions within families and communities.
• Practical Implementation: Leonie suggests starting with small, meaningful conversations with children, encouraging curiosity and understanding through open-ended questions.

Notable Quotes:

1. "I am someone who is so passionate and interested and curious about people and untangling the complexity of the human mind."
2. "There's always a function behind behavior, and there's always a function behind the issues that exist in the world."
3. "The greatest joy is sometimes asking big questions to your parents about their life story."
4. "It's not just about my dialogue; it's about understanding the person next to me."
5. "Start with what's happening in front of you and encourage them to go and disagree with them."

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Natalie Moujalli): In successful Lebanese Australian families, we often focus on grades, university admissions and career achievements. But what happens when our teenagers are struggling internally while excelling externally? Today, we explore the hidden mental health challenges facing our young people and how we as parents and a community can create true sanctuary at home. Welcome back to Finding Sanctuary. Today I've got Debbie Draby with me and Leonie Nahas.

0:00:28 - (Leonie Nahhas): Hi, Deb.

0:00:29 - (Debbie Draybi): Hello. I'm just excited that you're leaving.

0:00:31 - (Natalie Moujalli): I know.

0:00:32 - (Debbie Draybi): Well done.

0:00:34 - (Natalie Moujalli): Hi, Leonie. So, Leonie, okay, we're just going to.

0:00:38 - (Leonie Nahhas): Have to cut there.

0:00:40 - (Natalie Moujalli): Leonie Nahas is a psychologist who's working in the school systems at the moment. She's also opened her new private practice, which is Thrive Wives Psychology. And I know that that's thriving. And she's also concerned with community well being at large, which is why she opened her Illum A Loom Community Dialogue Forum. Yeah, I'll resay it.

0:01:05 - (Leonie Nahhas): Okay. Yeah, yeah.

0:01:06 - (Natalie Moujalli): Which is why she's opened A Loom, which is a community dialogue forum. Leonie, can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

0:01:13 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely. Thank you for having me.

0:01:15 - (Debbie Draybi): Hello. We got three psychologists in the house today, people, so brace yourselves. What could possibly go wrong?

0:01:21 - (Leonie Nahhas): So in tuned, you know, it's the best. So my name is Leonie. I am a registered psychologist by profession, but really someone who is so passionate and interested and curious about people and untangling the complexity of human mind and phenomena. So it just is unending. And so that insatiable curiosity is really what drives kind of why I was, yeah, I suppose interested in the profession from a young little girl and actually wanted to be a teacher.

0:01:54 - (Leonie Nahhas): When I was little, I used to be Sunday school, always rallying the little kids and they were like, look, you don't work here. Can you please. No, look, I just. I love people and, you know, kids growing up used to always hang around, cousins, et cetera. So I got into uni and I thought, why not study a double degree in psychology and education?

0:02:13 - (Natalie Moujalli): Why not just double degree it?

0:02:14 - (Leonie Nahhas): Why not just double degree it? And eventually I, not looking for it, sort of stumbled upon my path, which is when, you know, it's sort of meant to happen. There was a scholarship program with the Department of Education that could combine both my degrees and so I could register as a psychologist in schools. And so what a beautiful privilege it was to work with young people starting in underprivileged areas.

0:02:39 - (Leonie Nahhas): So Mount Druitt, which, to be honest, wasn't too far from where I lived. It is part of my community. It's part of My blood, which is what we're going to be talking about today, I guess, with community, that real affiliation and resonance with community is something really important to me. So as I was going about my way through the department in schools and jumping around different school communities all across Sydney, I thought, you know, there's a pattern here that I'm recognizing.

0:03:05 - (Leonie Nahhas): And I was really fortunate to have traveled overseas for a year and a half. I was based in Southeast Asia and there I found the crux of what I thought would, you know, be a solution to a lot of our. The gaps in society, a lot of the paradoxes, a lot of the us versus them ideologies was dialogue. And dialogue can be done in a certain way and it sounds pretty easy, but actually it's skill based. It requires emotional intelligence, social intelligence, and it requires curiosity of the other.

0:03:36 - (Leonie Nahhas): So that's kind of where Illume came into the picture. And I'm keen to talk about that a little bit later. But that's a little bit about who I am, you know, as a person, but my profession and what I'm passionate about and really keen to get into, I guess the ingredients of what I think is part of community wellbeing.

0:03:53 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah. So thank you so much. Look, I just want to kind of start this off by saying to you thank you for all of the interest and investments you've shown in Hill Sanctuary House at large. Leonie's been supporting us with helping us get the counseling service off the ground and looking at helping us in a consultation way. So I want to say thank you for that and I want to really simplify and ask you, what's dialogue?

0:04:19 - (Leonie Nahhas): Let's start there. So typically dialogue, you know, is between two people. Also there's inner dialogue. So it's within the self. And so I think in our profession we've got therapeutic spaces that is a one on one to help a client actually be able to have an inner dialogue, to make the complex tangled untangle. And that's our job, I guess, as psychologists partly is to help someone untangle the mess that they feel that they're in.

0:04:49 - (Leonie Nahhas): And that's very subjective. So that to me is like, oh, I love this therapeutic dialogue space. But I also felt beyond two people, beyond the inner self, we can really broaden that to a community, collective dialogue.

0:05:06 - (Natalie Moujalli): So when you're saying dialogue, you're talking about speaking, right? Like speaking to each other, communicating to each other. And then when you're talking about internal dialogue, you're talking about talking to yourself and then you're talking about dialogue. Within the community, which is having these open conversations on a. On a broader level.

0:05:26 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely, absolutely. And there's a term in our work called attunement, was tuning in, like you were to sort of dial up with the radio, just to dial, you know, tune in, I think with dialogue. Part of that is tuning into the other and alongside each other. So often I have my dialogue forums in a circle and that's where you can see people. And so dialogue to me is the speaking element, but it's also, I see into, you know, intimacy we talk is into me see, is actually having that skill to kind of go, I'm hearing. And you're both actively listening really well right now.

0:06:03 - (Leonie Nahhas): That's part of the skill that we need to start with our young people and so that they sort of grow up in their workplaces and families actually interested in others. Yeah.

0:06:14 - (Natalie Moujalli): So one of the things you've noticed in the school communities, which is what we talked about previously, is that there is a need to speak to each other, to have these conversations with each other, to have these dialogues. So that. Why is that important? Like, what do they need to speak. Speak to each other about?

0:06:33 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah. So apart from the topical issues of our current state of the world, which is very important because it brought in someone's worldview often, you know, and it's very developmentally appropriate. But young people are egocentric, and you could argue we are also egocentric at times. But at that developmental age, their worldview is narrow. They're just sort of getting by what's in front of them. Their brain's developing rapidly, but it's very egocentric.

0:07:03 - (Leonie Nahhas): And I find, you know, with the adolescent period, it is a beautiful time where they're starting to think in an abstract way. And that's where we need to tap into. Okay, if we're thinking abstract, we're thinking about things outside of ourselves. So that's important, I think, to be a citizen of our society, which we all are citizens. For me, I'm interested in active citizenship. And so the dialogue forum Illume, which is short for illuminate, to give light to, to educate is to go actually there's so much more beyond ourselves and so much more we need to appreciate about contrast. And our citizenship is active. And what do we do with that? It's not just sort of keeping to our own houses and our own private day to day things. It's kind of going well with what I have in front of me, with the privileges I have, how can I activate that? How can I be caring and Interested not only in people, but in themes and topics beyond themselves.

0:08:03 - (Debbie Draybi): What I'm hearing, Leonie, like, I think this is quite fascinating around. You know, we've had conversations on this podcast before, thinking about for our listeners what you describe as that inner dialogue. We've been talking about it as the stories we tell ourself. And the conversations we have, often, you know, they're not ones that we might share openly, and we keep them internally, and then they fester. And particularly if they're not positive ones, they can create real problems for us in ourselves, but in the relationships that we have.

0:08:38 - (Debbie Draybi): So what I'm hearing for you with Illuminate is around how to bring out some of those stories that we tell ourselves and be able to share them in a safe way with others and to almost just see it as a chance to open up a bit.

0:08:54 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, definitely. I feel when we talk about inner dialogue, it's that inner narrative, like you said. And with a narrative, we know that there's a thread, a pattern that's going on. And when we start to externalize that narrative about. For instance, we have an upcoming illum on AI, and that's very topical. It's something that people are either afraid of, they're really excited by, or even both, right? We hold both these contrasting things in both hands and sort of rest it and go, where are we at with that as a society? What do I think about it?

0:09:23 - (Leonie Nahhas): And often that fear is. I mean, fear is driving a lot of, you know, our behavior, sometimes maladaptive coping. It's. It's sort of a big part of the work that we do is to untangle that and sort of unpack it. But in a dialogue forum, when someone actually is, you know, sharing their opinion on what they think about AI, they start to externalize. Oh, where is my. Where is this coming from for me? But what is even better is that those who come back to a loom time and time again. We've been running for six years now, and, you know, over 800 people have come through, through the doors.

0:09:57 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's amazing what happens when it's less about my dialogue and more about understanding the person next to me and going, what am I resonate? Am I resonating with that dialogue or that story or that perspect? And if I don't, that's okay. Disagreement is not threatening. It shouldn't be threatening. And it actually is a space to interrogate those stories. And so interrogation is something that I. I'm pro interrogation. Right?

0:10:23 - (Leonie Nahhas): It sounds strange, but I really am saying we need to contend with these narratives because stereotypes, yes, they exist for a reason, but what do we do with that? We just don't say exist for a reason. Why do they exist? What are we saying? Like, we're in, you know, a hill sanctuary surrounding, you know, Middle Eastern communities. There are many narratives within our Middle Eastern culture that we keep saying it's a cultural thing.

0:10:51 - (Leonie Nahhas): Well, I'm encouraging us to kind of go, but why? And are we going to accept that? Or are you going to sort of interrogate or just challenge? Maybe interrogate's a bit of a strong one, but I like sort of putting. Pushing some of those boundaries at times.

0:11:05 - (Debbie Draybi): I think that's really fascinating thinking about bringing up ideas, you know, about the way we are or the way we've been told we should be as a community and having an opportunity to really talk about that in an open way and to think about it differently, perhaps, you know, it doesn't have to be one way.

0:11:25 - (Leonie Nahhas): No, not at all. It's. We're just multifaceted beings. We're multifaceted in our own, you know, systems. Our family systems, our community, my. Our schools. I work across schools. Every school has a different ecosystem. I can't compare them. There's some similarities and threads of that, but there's also just so many differences. So we ought to kind of appreciate how multifaceted we are. And with appreciation comes a bit of that challenge, too.

0:11:51 - (Natalie Moujalli): I think that's such a different approach to take. Appreciating our differences and encouraging disagreement, kind of, and having healthy discussions around, seeing each other's perspective. And I can see how that would be important to encourage with our children or parents to encourage with their children to teach them how to manage conflict. Is that something that you see?

0:12:19 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think, you know, going back to that developmental milestones, what's appropriate? You know, little kids that I work with, I started, you know, from preschool the way to year 12. And not to say I've got a really small preschooler coming up to me, asking, how do I deal with conflict? Right. But in their own way, developmentally, we can appreciate that a young, little, little child is dealing with conflict, inner conflict, out of conflict.

0:12:44 - (Leonie Nahhas): They're being modeled certain ways. And that curiosity can sometimes, you know, lead to either that cope, you know, adaptive coping or maladaptive coping from such a young age. So what I think is really interesting, we're kind of. There's a bit of a philosophical idea around conflict, inner conflict within us. I don't know if, you know, that sort of story around the two wolves and which wolf do you. Do you feed?

0:13:09 - (Leonie Nahhas): I'm going to butcher it because I can't fully remember the story. But we have a choice, ultimately. We have autonomy to choose between are we going to feed the wolf that is the dark wolf on the side, and we want to feed the anger and the aggression. Again, anger is not. It's an emotion. But if we fuel it too much, it kind of leads to a bit of that aggression. It's kind of a spectrum of emotions. Or do we feed, you know, the other part of us that is sort of the wise mind, the one that wants to kind of rise above that needs to learn regulation skills, et cetera. So that happens from a young age. And I see that play out behaviorally with young kids, but as they start getting older, and I really appreciate working with young adolescents because they're starting to question the big stuff.

0:13:51 - (Leonie Nahhas): They're starting to go, I don't know why I act like that. In fact, I don't know why I react like that, you know, and so that's the part that I'm like, great. I'm really admiring the courage that you have to come into the space, to come into the counseling room and ask these questions. And thank you for coming here and I honour that, I honour your privacy, obviously, the confidentiality piece, but I honor that you are questioning these things. Back to that, contending with.

0:14:17 - (Leonie Nahhas): So what I found with young adolescents is they came with the big questions, but they didn't have a perspective on it. They knew it was there. They knew there was some stuff happening outside of the school context. But again, the narrow kind of confines of school means that they kind of focus on those maths tests tomorrow and this and that, but they actually are thinking bigger than that. They're going to a home context, to a community context where things are happening.

0:14:44 - (Leonie Nahhas): So we can't sort of detach school from the rest of the world. And oftentimes, you know, you hear when it comes to tax time, I didn't teach that at school. They didn't. And I often question why. Same thing with life skills, with emotional intelligence skills, with social, you know, fabric of society. How do we sort of understand what's going on around us? Because really, ultimately we're teaching them that you have an important place in the world because you can form an opinion of what's going on in the world. In the world.

0:15:16 - (Leonie Nahhas): And I like to kind of go further and go, you can, you can have an informed opinion. And so that's where parents come in how do we inform them? How do we equip young people? And part of that, what I'm finding in a loom is that, you know, it's. It's geared towards a young professional context at the moment, but it's open to all. But these are people that I often wonder, how did you get so curious? You know, where did that come from? Oh, actually my parents or mum growing up, we'd have these conversations or my cousin, you know, at church or at my community group or this started there. So there's a space for that. There's a space to nurture that and to, you know, feed that part of their mind that is going, but why?

0:15:58 - (Leonie Nahhas): Let's not shy away from the why, because there's always a function behind behavior. There's always a function behind why issues exist in the world. Why is there conflict between nations? Why? What's the function? So cool to understand that. Yeah.

0:16:14 - (Natalie Moujalli): So how do we have difficult conversations? How do we have critical conversations? How do we stop and let someone else speak and then process that instead of listening to respond, Listening to understand even 100%.

0:16:28 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah. It's so interesting, Natalie, that you say that, because I start a loom with that. Let's listen to understand, not listen, just to speak. And what does understanding mean? It's kind of going, taking that moment. And processing looks different for different people. I've got people in the space that will wait till the hour is finished and they go and I say, does anyone else have something to add?

0:16:50 - (Leonie Nahhas): And they sort of perk up and say, actually yeah. And they synthesize everything that's discussed and come up with this epiphany comment or some commentary around what was discussed. And I think that was incredible. And they are someone that processes differently, whereas you've got others that are really a bit more forthcoming, bit more a sense of assurance of what they think, but they're willing to be challenged. So you've got different sort of levels of processing. Processing.

0:17:13 - (Leonie Nahhas): But something that I was really inspired to create was a 4e philosophy for illum. And that really is literally starts with all the words start with E. It's just easy to understand. All four. All four. So the first is encounter. I think the ingredient for, you know, processing and interrogating and finding disagreement, not threatening is we must first encounter an idea, a perspective, a person outside of ourselves.

0:17:43 - (Leonie Nahhas): So encounter is really important. Encounter could be an inevitable part. It is an inevitable part of our day to day. Right. We're encountering, but then we don't just stay there. We Move forward to engage. Engage is my favorite part is because that's when you sort of look someone in, you know, eye to eye or not even that. Just kind of have a moment to go, oh, it's interesting you say that. What's your perspective on this?

0:18:06 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's the question, it's asking the questions, it's being interested. And that's our body language. You know, 70% of our communication is body language. Are we kind of leaning, leaning into what someone's sort of talking about. Not, you know, too close, right. But somewhat sort of showing them, I'm attuned to you and what you've just said, or an idea, you go search it online. I mean that's where AI comes in. People are really using that platform to go, but so where does this come from? Like, or, you know, how do I create this recipe? And they're looking for ways to engage with, you know, skill development through online platforms, through, you know, people to people interactions, through research, through interest and curiosity. That's where curiosity really comes in.

0:18:47 - (Leonie Nahhas): Part of engage is then the inevitable evolve. And that's the evolution that will come from when you engage with something, when you interrogate something. And this is a beautiful part because you start to go, I never thought of it that way. You know, we've all had light bulb moments and that's the evolution of our worldview. It's so beautiful that as part of, you know, the privilege that we have as psychologists is to see evolution happen with our clients.

0:19:15 - (Leonie Nahhas): We see the evolution of their selfhood, their identity, their understanding, their appreciation, their compassion. It's evolution. And that's part of the engaging with them one on one. And I find in the loom space is that we start to go, wow, there is such contradictions in our world and it's inevitable, it's happening. But how do I hold both and appreciate both? Right? Appreciate difference. Back to what we were talking about and the last one there I added a few years ago because I thought, okay, evolution's all good.

0:19:48 - (Leonie Nahhas): Then what? It's an act. We must do something with the evolution. I often wonder, you know, it's only come to me this, this year in my, in my practice. But I was thinking, okay, we're working to evolve someone's self awareness. It's important to be self aware because that leads to more compassion, a bit more kind of like, oh, I didn't mean to hurt your empathy, all the good things. But if we stop there at self awareness has nothing to do with the other really.

0:20:14 - (Leonie Nahhas): So then it kind of leads to for me personally, why I put an act there. We need to be a self gift. And you know, in the framework of my faith, self gift is incredibly important to me because I can be gifted in certain areas of self awareness, which you'd hope as a psychologist, you'd hope, you'd hope. But what do I do with that? I'm a self gift to others. I start to serve my community. I start to plug in, I start to go, you know what, I'm happy to do that. Great, I can link you up with this person. Or what do I do with the self awareness? How do I create platforms? And that's where illum happened for me is because I felt like this is important.

0:20:51 - (Leonie Nahhas): So that hopefully that sort of sums.

0:20:52 - (Debbie Draybi): Up the 4e philosophy I was wondering about with Illum. If you could just take us a little bit back. How did your work with children and adolescence influence the development of a loom? What was it that sort of.

0:21:07 - (Natalie Moujalli): And I think what is a loom and how did it eventuate?

0:21:12 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah, I'll take it right back the timeline. Not too long, I promise. So when I was studying, I was given a scholarship opportunity to go to Southeast Asia for a year and a half. And while I was there, I was doing a lot of internship. I finished off my degrees, thank goodness, praise the Lord. And then I went to do all these different internships. They were focused on children, adolescent spaces and just going all across Southeast Asia. I really went to every country, I'm not even kidding.

0:21:40 - (Leonie Nahhas): And I was, I want to try this. I want to serve this community. I did a lot of community development work, worked in schools, for example, you know, in the middle of, it's called Tondo in Manila in the Philippines. Worked with a lot of stuff around mental health and building, you know, workshops and working with the kids there. And I realized as I was traveling and doing, you know, so many wonderful things, I was really connecting with people of different cultures and ages and spaces.

0:22:08 - (Leonie Nahhas): And you know, I just kept growing the curiosity for people. And then I sort of took all that and I came back to Sydney and I was like straight back into, you know, full time work. And I was like, there's a lot of cultural awareness that I've got or, you know, what they call cultural competency. It's one of those things that you hear on, you know, merits criteria and stuff. But really at the crux of that was like I was managing to be somewhat developed a skill of adaptability and attunement and questions and making people feel comfortable.

0:22:41 - (Leonie Nahhas): And I Thought I developed almost kind of wrote a recipe when I was traveling. I was like, there's certain ingredients to this. There's a dialogue. Oh, there's dialogue. Okay. Had a lot of dialogue. But it wasn't just a, yes, there's reciprocity, but it was a dialogue that was really beautiful. And I remember when I was overseas, I was in one of the cafeterias at uni, and this guy, he was from Amsterdam, actually, another exchange student.

0:23:08 - (Leonie Nahhas): We were so different. So different. All levels of ideology, of faith, of everything. And he said something to me that stuck with me. And he said, you know, Leonie, you're quite fascinating. And I was like, oh, geez, all right. Is that a good thing? And he said, no, it's like, we're so different, but we've managed to connect so easily. What is that? And that's when I thought, there's something here.

0:23:32 - (Leonie Nahhas): So I didn't want to keep it to myself and go, there's ingredients. And just kind of open the recipe book and go, yep, I'm set for life. I thought, this is something I want to bring to a space. Collectively. I want to bring. I want to widen it out, because I know the power of ripple effect. I know that when we start with ourselves, yes. But when we start in a group, they're going to go out and, you know, kind of referring back to a bit of faith is go out and make disciples. Go out.

0:23:59 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's all well and good to keep it here, but that's kind of what Hill Sanctuary House is doing as well. It's kind of going, we have a hub, but we want to equip you, empower you, and help you gain the independence to go out and effect change. So that's the story of Illum. And I sort of came back and I thought, illum light. I was workshopping, like, a hundred names. I have a tendency to kind of do everything and go, you know, analysis, paralysis. We got there in the end. I said, I'm sticking with this.

0:24:25 - (Leonie Nahhas): And it stuck with a lot of people.

0:24:28 - (Natalie Moujalli): It sounds incredible. I can't wait to come to my first illume.

0:24:31 - (Leonie Nahhas): Save the date 28th of August. Would love to have you.

0:24:35 - (Debbie Draybi): So what does it look like for listeners who aren't familiar with it?

0:24:39 - (Leonie Nahhas): What.

0:24:39 - (Debbie Draybi): What is it like a forum or a workshop? Just describe it.

0:24:44 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely. Yeah. It sounds a bit foreign and abstract, but. So I secured a new space this year, and it's a lovely space in the city of Sydney. But we start the. The night with. And it's not just about networking. It's about connection. So people come in.

0:25:00 - (Debbie Draybi): So it's not online. It's not.

0:25:02 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's an in person.

0:25:02 - (Debbie Draybi): It's an in person gathering.

0:25:04 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's an in person gathering. I did do an online thing for. For during COVID the word that must not be named. But we did, we did do it and international people came and national people came, was awesome. But I really wanted to keep it but local and in person. Cause to be honest, people were sick of zoom. So yes, we have it in person. It starts with a connection segment of just natural networking. People chatting, there's name tags. People kind of know who's who in the room, get to know each other.

0:25:34 - (Leonie Nahhas): I have what I call tea on tap. It's cozy, it's winter. I want as much tea, hot chocolate, coffee as I can give. So we have a coffee machine all set up. There's snacks, there's all the things that will make it a really nice. There's fairy lights all set up, screen ready to go with a loom on it. So after half an hour people kind of settle in. Then I have my segment of introduction and I have in that introduction kind of what I spoke about before, why it exists.

0:26:00 - (Leonie Nahhas): I like, you know, the why, the how, what it's all about. It really orients people to the discussion and it sets that safety in the space.

0:26:08 - (Natalie Moujalli): And you set a topic, right? Like there's a topic. Yes, for each session. Yeah.

0:26:13 - (Leonie Nahhas): So I'll kind of do a scan, do a little poll and. And so sort of see what is happening in life at the moment. What do we really want to talk about? I must say the popular. We get sort of around 20, 25 people each time. A popular topic is relationships, which really speaks to what, you know, we really want to understand, which is relational. How do we, you know, how do we connect in, how do we understand ourselves? Which is, you know, quite understandable.

0:26:38 - (Leonie Nahhas): And then after that I have a little psych segment of like, like kind of the themes connected to the psychology behind for example, AI and tying that in and orienting people to kind of go. Because, you know, as a psych, I can't help but not draw it into human phenomena. And what's sort of going on gets people thinking. And then it's all about democratic voting. So I have an online system set up, QR coding in or a little website. They hop on there, I set the theme and I get everyone to come up with a question.

0:27:06 - (Leonie Nahhas): It's all anonymous. Voting is anonymous. They write their question in or give some little music in the background some time to think. Everyone's quite into it. You can see like, you know, they're like, oh, I really want to understand this topic. Those questions are up, we vote and whoever is the most voted, we put that on the screen and we go ahead and we, you know, I facilitate an hour worth of discussion and it never is enough time.

0:27:32 - (Leonie Nahhas): So this is people led, this is community led. It's not me bringing the question, I bring the theme based on what people are saying and what's happening, but really it's about the voices in the room. And thankfully I can participate myself and kind of offer some alternatives or questions that can sort of steer the conversation. I wrap it up by giving a bit of a summary, a loom epiphany question back for them to ponder on.

0:27:56 - (Leonie Nahhas): I write up a graphics, you know, create a whole graphic summary post that, do a community photo post that. It's an ongoing dialogue and I've got people messaging going, when's the next one? You know, can we talk about this? So it is an ongoing thing. It's not just a one hit wonder event that happens every two months. It's sort of an ongoing community, which is beautiful.

0:28:13 - (Natalie Moujalli): Can I ask you specifically, do you ever get into a. How do you manage having that kind of forum where it's quite open and people get to ask whatever they want and they share their opinions and their opinions are different? How do you manage conversations and healthy discussions around differing opinions and perspectives?

0:28:32 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, great question. So before we begin in the explanation of a loom, I give examples, I give a summary from the previous session so people can start to see, oh, there's some big ideas here, there's some differing opinions here. And so they start to kind of get a sense of, okay, so we can offer a perspective that's different. Then I really set the tone for emotional psychological safety in the room by explaining that this is a space for personal development.

0:29:01 - (Leonie Nahhas): If you are someone that you know has a stronger opinion, but that's kind of be mindful, be curious about that. Why does it come up really strong for you that you need to share it? If you're someone that doesn't, isn't forthcoming what's going on, you know, kind of be mindful of yourself in this space now. What happens within the first 10 minutes? I've got someone just gently kind of offering a perspective. Those who have come before are less about this is my opinion and more about asking the space more questions.

0:29:26 - (Leonie Nahhas): And that is where I feel like people go, oh, this is different here. It's not just, you know, some of people in Christian spaces or other discussion groups, they have like, they just offer opinion and they go around the circle. It's not like that. It's actually kind of like a ping pong situation. If you can imagine that in a room where it's kind of back and forth but it's less. This is my opinion. It's like interesting you say that.

0:29:48 - (Leonie Nahhas): Why do you think that's? Because in our society functions and it's back into the space and if I feel at any point, you know, people, people, it just manages to kind of go this way. But they're mindful if they talk over time as well. Power, which is part of eq, emotional intelligence, kind of going, okay, perceptive of the space, let me. Or receptive. And you know, they start to go, but that's, you know what I think, what does everyone else think? And someone across the room will go.

0:30:15 - (Leonie Nahhas): Also if we've got someone sort of speaking a bit too much, again, they read the room or I facilitate. That's kind of the role of facilitator. It's not me offering just my perspective. It's actually steering it in a direction I'm constantly molding, creating. It's such a creative space for that. And I love that because my mind's going ping pong pong inside. And so I'm going, okay, back to what you said, Natalie, you know, da da, da, da da. Or you know, Paul mentioned before.

0:30:40 - (Leonie Nahhas): Let's go back to that. And I have the question on the board. I sound like a teacher. I have a question on the screen, right? And that's always. It's funny, everyone kind of looks back every few seconds to go, let's stay on topic, right? Because there are times which I invite. There's times where it does get. There's disagreements and I always say, that's okay, hold. Let's hold space for that. There's no aggression ever.

0:31:05 - (Leonie Nahhas): In fact, there's just appreciation and someone. The beautiful point that I always remember Wanaloom is that we had it on political ideology, like identity. And you know, what's sort of coming out now of the fluidity around identity, right. We had a person in the room that identified in a certain way and she said like, look, this is how I identify. But I've never heard it from a faith perspective. I actually have never heard. And then someone off the faith, for instance, would kind of go, can I just say thank you for sharing your story?

0:31:36 - (Leonie Nahhas): And she said, thank you for kind of keeping, you know, holding space for me, so beautiful. How often do we get that? In fact, it's just us versus them perpetuating in terms of what's happening, especially in schools. Can I just say.

0:31:51 - (Natalie Moujalli): I was gonna say. So what you're saying is what you're seeing play out in a loom is what you're seeing a need for parents to start facilitating and teaching and leading the way with their children on how to have these kinds of healthy discussions in the home as they grow in their formative years, rather than. Or as well as learning how to do this in their later years as adults. Because often then we're set in our ways and it's difficult. It's possible to change, but it's difficult. So opening their minds when they're younger and they're little to how to receive people's perspectives, how to understand, how to empathise and then move forward, like, we don't have to agree on everything.

0:32:33 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely.

0:32:34 - (Natalie Moujalli): We just need to respect each other and hold space.

0:32:36 - (Leonie Nahhas): Definitely. And I trialled the ELU model at one of my high schools, and these are young teenage boys. And the way I got them to do it was to kind of write a pondering about, you know, around mental health and the amount of questions and. And themes and patterns that came through. And we'd run it for two terms and they kept wanting to come back, so we'd rotate groups in the year groups. And there was such a response.

0:33:05 - (Leonie Nahhas): And yes, they were curious, they were afraid to speak. They were kind of almost looking at each other, like just a space to kind of. But that's where it starts. If we make it a fabric of, you know, say, our school system or our communities, you know, we normalize it and that's when they start to learn the skill, the soft skills to go. This person in front of me I thought was a mate. He was a mate of mine, but I didn't know he felt that way.

0:33:34 - (Leonie Nahhas): And he actually said depression out loud. And now we're all kind of saying we suffer from some symptoms. It's powerful. And so I can see that there's definitely a space for the Ellum model, or just a discussion forum, if you like, a platform in these spaces that we move to.

0:33:51 - (Debbie Draybi): So what do you. If you could summarize for our listeners with the ELLO model, what are you mainly promoting?

0:33:58 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah. So I'm promoting sort of a platform, a space, a time. So if it's setting aside one hour to grab a group of people together and getting them to write on a poster note, make it easy it doesn't have to be a fancy screen with my logo on it, but it's really just getting to write on a post it note and setting a theme and going, I want you to anonymously write a question you're pondering about this topic.

0:34:22 - (Leonie Nahhas): Let's talk about in our Middle Eastern community. Let's talk about mental health. I want you to anonymously write on a post it note, I'll collect it. I'm going to randomly choose three and you're all going to vote on that three. And I will facilitate. And I want you all to know this space is. It's welcomed for disagreement. And with that you build the muscle. I feel like in our now in that space, you're working and you're building muscle like we do at a gym.

0:34:48 - (Leonie Nahhas): You know, we build the muscle, it sort of strengthens and grows. You need to feed it with that protein, which means take the conversations out, parents, engage with them. And I'm talking, I'm keen to see this working the adult space as much as I do with the children's space, particularly in our communities, because it's needed.

0:35:03 - (Debbie Draybi): Predominantly now, is it with young people, the groups that you have, or with it's young professionals.

0:35:08 - (Leonie Nahhas): So I would say we're averaging probably, probably you know, 20 to 40 at the moment. But, you know, as I start to kind of build that, I'd love to bring it into spaces if you like.

0:35:19 - (Natalie Moujalli): So Hill Sanctuary House could potentially, you could come and run in a loom there.

0:35:23 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely.

0:35:24 - (Natalie Moujalli): Why I think this is incredible for specifically culturally is because we do struggle as a culture with internalizing and externalizing feelings. So often, especially in relationships, we will keep quiet, we will keep the peace. We don't want to argue, we don't want to fight. So we internalize. And that causes all kinds of problems within us. So what we're trying to learn here is go, you don't have to internalize everything. You don't have to keep everything in.

0:35:56 - (Natalie Moujalli): We can find respectful ways to share how we feel and then come together and equally have respect for each other's feelings and move forward.

0:36:07 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, and move forward. And that's, that's collectively right. Yeah. And what's beautiful, you know, we were talking about before, is when you start to kind of, kind of tune in and go, what's my opinion on this? You know, what is mental health to me? And externalizing that and actually kind of try to articulate and it's hard to put language to things, being gentle with yourself, but kind of going, oh, I'm Struggling to articulate this, that's like a data point. That's information for yourself to go, oh, why am I struggling to articulate that?

0:36:34 - (Leonie Nahhas): And once we start to kind of externalize, internalize, this is interplay happening. We bring it and we sort of go, are you also, you know, thinking about this? And then you've now got a reciprocal conversation going that is now rippling effect, that ripple effect kind of comes through.

0:36:51 - (Natalie Moujalli): And maybe not even why am I struggling to articulate this? But also why am I struggling to hear this? Like, why am I sitting in this space and I'm hearing this person's feelings and thoughts and it's triggering me, why, why do I feel like this? So it's just that self reflection, 100%.

0:37:09 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, Leonie, you started in your introduction today about, you know, what attracted you to psychology and, and the profession was your curiosity for people. But what I'm hearing also is this really engaging, this beautiful model of how.

0:37:27 - (Leonie Nahhas): To.

0:37:29 - (Debbie Draybi): Engage curiosity in others and to see diversity as, as a positive thing and not a thrill. Because I think we do. I think a big pressure has been in our community to be the same, to conform to the same ideas and the same way of being. And you're challenging that in such a beautiful and safe way. And I think that's incredible of how we engage the diversity within a community where it's been a big push to be the same.

0:37:57 - (Leonie Nahhas): That's it, that's it. Not to fear difference in your worldview. And you know, there's a space for resonating with community and others and building a cohesiveness around community for sure. But in that you kind of lose that sense of. Actually I can hold difference too in this space. I can hold both.

0:38:19 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. And see it as a positive thing and not. I think you talked about when we had our introduction, the importance of building that collective well being. And it sounds like, you know, from what you're describing, that collective well being is around coming together and embracing our diversity and allowing it to teach us how to be coexist and to be together as a community.

0:38:44 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah. And it's sort of the segue is that's the thriving aspect. Right. So, yeah, thrive wise. You know, my practice is, I love the aspect of thriving. I love that's moving away from the deficit model in our profession. But wisdom is my favorite because we have inner wisdom and we can learn through each other, through wisdom, the wisdom of others. So that's thrive wise. Right. And I think there's a beautiful space for that which is the Birth of the name, really. But yeah, so kind of links to that as well.

0:39:11 - (Debbie Draybi): Being able to sort of create a model where you're allowing people to, you know, find ways to connect and to come together and build on that collective strength.

0:39:23 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

0:39:24 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, thank you. I think it's been a wonderful conversation and I just wondered as we're finishing up, whether you had any key messages to our listeners, any parents out there in particular that are struggling with starting difficult conversations with their kids. You know, what's some of the key things that you think from this model and from your experiences that you could sort of share with them?

0:39:49 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I would say, you know, start small. Kind of the car rides home to and from school, you know, the random Saturday morning while you're watching the footy, or it's kind of asking the why questions that when I said contending, it's sort of going, how was your day at school? Good. You know, your one word answers, it's that skill to kind of go, I'm going to ask a multifaceted question which is what's three things you loved at school today or even in your week?

0:40:17 - (Leonie Nahhas): What's three things that you're grateful for or that you found or one thing that you found tricky? And in those sort of, that's when you start to unpack the follow up questions. It's not just the first question. It's the follow up questions that matter. It's the why, the function behind what they're saying. It's getting curious around what your child's responses are and to encourage them to, you know what, that is an awesome comment.

0:40:39 - (Leonie Nahhas): I don't actually know much about AI. Right. Let's sit down and look it up together. Let's see what, you know, what, what people are saying outside of our spaces. Let's actually ask our cousins that we're going to visit, you know, in the afternoon. Start small. Start with what's happening in front of you and encourage them to kind of go and disagree with them and create that safe space to go. You know, we're disagreeing. It's not a bad thing when, when someone disagrees with us.

0:41:04 - (Leonie Nahhas): It just highlights a point of difference. We can start to appreciate difference, but you can start to be, you know, we want to develop their sense of self insecurity to kind of go, but this is what our belief and value system is so affirming, but also contending when I would say sort of those comments. Yeah.

0:41:21 - (Natalie Moujalli): You know, Deb, this reminds me of what you've spoken about. So many times through the podcast.

0:41:27 - (Debbie Draybi): Oh, my God.

0:41:28 - (Natalie Moujalli): Nat listens, I listen. I just don't.

0:41:31 - (Debbie Draybi): Everyone finally listens to it.

0:41:32 - (Natalie Moujalli): I just don't talk, But I do listen.

0:41:34 - (Debbie Draybi): And now she's quoting me, everyone.

0:41:36 - (Natalie Moujalli): Humble curiosity.

0:41:37 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah.

0:41:37 - (Natalie Moujalli): You know, isn't that the framework that you're talking about, having that humble curiosity?

0:41:43 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, yeah, just as you're talking. That's. That. That's. That was exactly what I was imagining. You're teaching parents how to model curiosity and that humility that comes with it. And there's no wrong question. You know, we tell our kids that, and how do we. How do we show them that? Through the way in which we ask questions.

0:42:02 - (Leonie Nahhas): That's beautiful. Yeah.

0:42:03 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. I love. I love the. The example that you gave around, you know, giving people rather than having the questions, allowing them to generate questions that they're curious about and just, you know, teaching that skill of, you know, asking quality questions that can unlock, you know, meaning and curiosity that we didn't even imagine to start with.

0:42:28 - (Leonie Nahhas): Well, absolutely. Some of the best first points of connection I've had is through questions.

0:42:33 - (Natalie Moujalli): Yeah, I always talk about that. Always talk about how when you want to connect with someone on a deeper level, it's not actually about talking, it's about listening. And then those. Those questions, why, how, when, how did that feel like there's motivational interviewing questions.

0:42:54 - (Leonie Nahhas): Yeah, for sure. And it's. It so fascinating. Well, I find it very fascinating that behind everyone's face is a story we can never fully fathom. So, of course, it is a privilege to get to unravel that and tap into that through every single person. And what, even more so if it's your kids, Right? And as kids, teenagers, adolescents, if you had a period of time where you can start to ask your parents, that has been the greatest joy. I actually do sometimes.

0:43:23 - (Leonie Nahhas): I can't believe I'm saying this on. On air, but I actually asked my parents individually, ask them big questions about their life story. And I was like, my dad did what he studied in the States and joined this, and he did this. And mom, like, she survived the war, like, stuff like that. I'm like, there's so much appreciation can be done in our own family unit systems and even more so on a.

0:43:44 - (Natalie Moujalli): Community level by asking questions.

0:43:47 - (Leonie Nahhas): Absolutely.

0:43:50 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, thank you, Leonie. Thank you for sharing your experiences and for sharing this beautiful model of coming together. And for parents out there listening, I guess a key thing I'm hearing is instead of asking your kids questions, be curious about what questions they might have and give them the space to do that. And I think you've modeled that so beautifully today.

0:44:10 - (Leonie Nahhas): Thank you so much.

0:44:11 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, it's really nice to meet you and looking forward to working with you.

0:44:15 - (Natalie Moujalli): Thank you, Leone.