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From the archives: Mindfulness For Arabic Refugees & Displaced People with Juditta Ben-David · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Are today we even another episode from the archives with
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Speaker 1: one of my incredible guests, enjoy Welcome to the Trauma
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Speaker 1: Diver's podcast, a show about the incredible people dedicated to
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Speaker 1: helping those of experienced trauma. My name is gomcpherson and
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Speaker 1: my mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to
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Speaker 1: inspire each of us to help those around us. All right, guys,
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the Trauma Nevers podcast. Got mcperson here
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Speaker 1: with my very special guest, Judita Ben David.
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Speaker 2: Judita, welcome, thank you, thank you, thanks for the podcast.
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Speaker 2: So it's really interesting podcasts.
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Speaker 1: I really appreciate that. Thank you so, Judita have. Ben
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Speaker 1: David is founder of the Mindfulness and Arabic Projects otherwise
0:54
Speaker 1: known as MIA. MIA aims to build a website that
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Speaker 1: will offer an eight week mindfulness course in our designed
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Speaker 1: for refugees and people in transition. Any person with internet
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Speaker 1: access may enter the website free of charge anywhere around
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Speaker 1: the world. The course will provide practical tools and exercises
1:11
Speaker 1: tailored specifically to support a shaken population that suffer traumas
1:15
Speaker 1: of fear, death and extreme violence. The website will also
1:19
Speaker 1: provide tools for therapists, social workers, welfare and volunteers who
1:23
Speaker 1: are currently working with refugee populations so that they may
1:26
Speaker 1: use mindfulness based tools for their own needs in coping
1:29
Speaker 1: with the work stress and related DP camp difficult experiences,
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Speaker 1: as well as passing them on to their clients. Mia
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Speaker 1: developed out of the work of Judita working there with
1:38
Speaker 1: refugees and their supporters, counselors and social workers. The requests
1:42
Speaker 1: for additional tools led to a crowd funding campaign raising
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Speaker 1: one half of the funds needed to launch their eight
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Speaker 1: week course. MEA is thankful to be supported by leading
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Speaker 1: mindfulness instructors like John Kebotsin, Jack Cornfield, Tarer Brock, Christopher Timus,
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Speaker 1: and Patricia Janudefeldman, as well as mindfulness providers like Heads
2:00
Speaker 1: and Mindful Magazine. All right, so before we go in here,
2:04
Speaker 1: share with our listeners where you're from and where you're
2:07
Speaker 1: calling from, and then let's do it.
2:10
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm calling from Israel, and I am usually
2:18
Speaker 2: and I'm also sort of like a citizen of the
2:21
Speaker 2: world in a way because I lived in many many
2:23
Speaker 2: places during my developmental years. So yeah, that's in a nutshell,
2:31
Speaker 2: I guess.
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Speaker 1: Okay, Well, like I said, it's great having you on here.
2:35
Speaker 1: So let's you know, before we start talking about Mia,
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Speaker 1: I want to kind of hear your story how this
2:44
Speaker 1: all came about. And I realized this can be a
2:46
Speaker 1: huge story. But I want you to, uh, you know,
2:51
Speaker 1: with all due respect, kind of give us, give us
2:54
Speaker 1: the nutshell version if you will.
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Speaker 2: Okay, Well, you know, you you sort of like had
3:01
Speaker 2: a question there about what led me. Could I start
3:08
Speaker 2: from that question?
3:10
Speaker 1: Please do?
3:11
Speaker 2: Okay? So, because I've been many years now in therapy
3:16
Speaker 2: and teaching therapy and facilitating therapy, and and actually this
3:22
Speaker 2: question about what led me to specifically to trauma therapy
3:26
Speaker 2: was very interesting for me, and I became curious about that.
3:31
Speaker 2: You know, it's sort of like changes a lot of
3:33
Speaker 2: times also from from a situation to situation, or from
3:38
Speaker 2: you know, one life stage to another. And I was
3:41
Speaker 2: thinking about it and said, you know, it's actually today
3:48
Speaker 2: is the day that we sat after my mother died.
3:54
Speaker 2: She died on Monday, mm hmm, And uh yeah, And
4:02
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there and a lot of trauma memories are
4:06
Speaker 2: coming up, and I need to do my own work
4:10
Speaker 2: while I'm sitting there as well in this big family connection,
4:13
Speaker 2: you know. And so that's sort of like the first
4:18
Speaker 2: thing that you know, it's like, yeah, I come from
4:20
Speaker 2: a place that I had to do a lot of
4:23
Speaker 2: work on my own story, from my own roots that
4:29
Speaker 2: would be more developmental trauma. And then when I was
4:35
Speaker 2: a child, an old aunt came to live underneath us,
4:43
Speaker 2: and and she came from the Auschwitz camps, and she
4:50
Speaker 2: was one very strong PTSD. But then we did not
4:55
Speaker 2: know that it was not called that way, and she
5:00
Speaker 2: couldn't speak anything except German, but she all the time
5:06
Speaker 2: told me all of the stories, and so later on
5:12
Speaker 2: I could see how I'm sort of like rehashing these
5:15
Speaker 2: stories and trying to tell them also to other kids
5:19
Speaker 2: to make sense of it. And I think a lot
5:23
Speaker 2: of that also, and the pain that she was caring,
5:28
Speaker 2: and to see how a person that goes through this
5:32
Speaker 2: and that his family is being, you know, extinct, how
5:38
Speaker 2: that can affect her possibility to adapt to a new place,
5:45
Speaker 2: which was very bad. And then when way I was
5:51
Speaker 2: a child, I was actually living in the United States
5:56
Speaker 2: and in Michigan of all places, and my best friend
6:00
Speaker 2: was an Egyptian girl.
6:02
Speaker 3: And.
6:05
Speaker 2: The Sixth Day War started and I saw on TV
6:10
Speaker 2: that they usually bombed the Egyptian airplanes and I couldn't
6:17
Speaker 2: get it. I couldn't understand this, you know, and I
6:19
Speaker 2: could see how that affected again our relationships around in
6:25
Speaker 2: that same place, you know, in the student camp that
6:28
Speaker 2: was there, and later on, you know, going around the world.
6:33
Speaker 2: As I said, I could see how violence and trauma
6:39
Speaker 2: suffering is happening next to my therapy studies. I was
6:45
Speaker 2: also studied since nineteen ninety Buddhist studies, the passana and
6:51
Speaker 2: mindfulness of course now, but also.
6:54
Speaker 1: A lot of.
6:58
Speaker 2: The root of the Buddhist study, and that really affected me.
7:03
Speaker 2: That touched me, and the connection between these two so
7:07
Speaker 2: led me to understand, you know, the wheel of garmaous
7:12
Speaker 2: and how things sort of like affect each other, and
7:15
Speaker 2: how trauma can get stronger and stronger, and how the
7:22
Speaker 2: one that's traumatized then sometimes becomes the perpetrator himself for herself,
7:26
Speaker 2: and you know, all of that really started to make sense.
7:31
Speaker 2: And living here in Israel also, you know, we see
7:35
Speaker 2: how this happens in everyday life. And this is very
7:38
Speaker 2: very sad, but this is also sometimes it feels also
7:41
Speaker 2: like a cage working also traumatized soldiers working also with
7:47
Speaker 2: Assyrians that come from Syria, and they are wounded, and
7:52
Speaker 2: how to also find the way to you know, have
7:56
Speaker 2: those two live together. So I think that that is
8:01
Speaker 2: sort of like where I'm coming from, except from all
8:04
Speaker 2: of the other things that I learned and studied, and
8:07
Speaker 2: you know, even began from medicine studies in the beginning
8:11
Speaker 2: of my academic studies and all of that sort of
8:14
Speaker 2: like came and became something that I'm very much interested about,
8:19
Speaker 2: and also that I really want to share with people
8:22
Speaker 2: that are in crisis right now, that are being displaced
8:26
Speaker 2: right now, that are going through that you know, moving
8:30
Speaker 2: that walking of a population, and to see how and
8:36
Speaker 2: if there is some way that these tools that I
8:39
Speaker 2: also used on myself but also in my clinic, if
8:42
Speaker 2: I can also share them with them.
8:45
Speaker 1: Thank you for sharing that. I mean, it sounds like
8:49
Speaker 1: a extremely rich and at the same time very almost
8:56
Speaker 1: trauma filled environment. I think, you know, you certainly laid
9:03
Speaker 1: the foundation for us to understand what inspired you to
9:09
Speaker 1: get into this field and what's almost the backdrop. But
9:14
Speaker 1: not everyone does the work you're doing in that environment.
9:18
Speaker 1: If you can talk a little bit more about what
9:24
Speaker 1: was what was going on in your mind such that
9:27
Speaker 1: you said, Okay, I want to get into this field.
9:29
Speaker 1: I want to start helping people or working with people
9:32
Speaker 1: who are suffering from trauma. What was that process like
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Speaker 1: for you?
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Speaker 2: The truth is, I don't think that there was a
9:44
Speaker 2: process in itself. I mean, all of these things were
9:47
Speaker 2: a process underneath. But then what happened was that I
9:52
Speaker 2: was teaching bread work and I was, you know, in
9:56
Speaker 2: the psychotherapy field already, and some gish ga and Yungien
10:01
Speaker 2: approaches and and uh body oriented psychotherapy and out of
10:10
Speaker 2: that and my vipasana and Buddhist studies on the side,
10:15
Speaker 2: you know, so a little bit of mayana something was
10:18
Speaker 2: coming into a connection between these in my own work,
10:21
Speaker 2: which I thought that they're not by my students said hey,
10:24
Speaker 2: you're teaching when your studies also, you know. So then
10:28
Speaker 2: I started to uh give it some thought and to
10:34
Speaker 2: look at it. And then Peter Levine came Testra and
10:40
Speaker 2: I heard him and I just felt, wow, this is
10:43
Speaker 2: this is it? You know for me? Also, I just
10:46
Speaker 2: felt I was like, you're talking, you're talking me here.
10:50
Speaker 2: You know. It's really nice. I mean, it's very It's
10:54
Speaker 2: when you have that clique, you know that Okay, this
10:57
Speaker 2: is my language now, I know, you know, where I'm going,
11:01
Speaker 2: and that's what started at.
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Speaker 1: Really Okay, so currently you're working with kind of getting
11:10
Speaker 1: me off the ground. But if I'm hearing you correctly,
11:13
Speaker 1: are you working in private practice or in different talk
11:16
Speaker 1: a little bit more, what does that look like?
11:19
Speaker 2: Who are you?
11:20
Speaker 1: You talked a little bit about working with people who
11:24
Speaker 1: are soldiers and so forth.
11:28
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, yeah, So my clinic is also a clinic,
11:33
Speaker 2: you know, on the ground, but also via skype zoom nowadays. Yeah,
11:39
Speaker 2: And I have grown ups like between seventeen and sixteen,
11:46
Speaker 2: nine seventeen, you know, And what we work with is,
11:51
Speaker 2: you know, life, it's not only about trauma, because you
11:54
Speaker 2: really need to balance yourself out when you work with
11:57
Speaker 2: this kind of with this sub and with this you know,
12:02
Speaker 2: these kthectic energies, so you balance yourself out. And that's
12:06
Speaker 2: also an advice that I'm getting to therapists. And and
12:10
Speaker 2: then the population that is coming. There are also soldiers
12:14
Speaker 2: that have gone through trauma that are holding PTSD already,
12:19
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's so car accidents and and women with
12:24
Speaker 2: sexual abuse or sometimes also LGBT people that are coming
12:30
Speaker 2: from the group. We have a group in the Tel
12:35
Speaker 2: Aviv area, very live group that are coming with very
12:40
Speaker 2: interesting and very curious questions. And and I also work
12:50
Speaker 2: in the North End hospitals with wounded Syrians that are
12:54
Speaker 2: coming over, because the hospitals in the North of usual
12:59
Speaker 2: giveical care to wounded Syrians and usually they're what I
13:05
Speaker 2: do is I work with the social workers there. I
13:07
Speaker 2: also work through the Red Cross to teach, to educate,
13:11
Speaker 2: to supervise the social workers that are working with the Syrians.
13:17
Speaker 2: And I've been teaching. I've been teaching in colleges and universities.
13:20
Speaker 2: I teach in I work with NGOs in Turkey they're
13:24
Speaker 2: working with refugees. But I also taught like in New
13:28
Speaker 2: Marcinia University or in Ireland also in the university and
13:35
Speaker 2: also a psychotherapy center. So I bring these tools as
13:38
Speaker 2: well through teaching, not only in the clinic.
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Speaker 1: Before before we kind of jump into the genesis of mia,
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Speaker 1: can you share a little bit about what you're teaching
13:50
Speaker 1: specifically to these social workers who are working with soldiers.
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Speaker 2: Okay, I'm teaching them a lot of techniques that we
13:58
Speaker 2: call that psychos psychophysical techniques or what other people call
14:06
Speaker 2: sometimes the third wave techniques, and those are techniques that
14:11
Speaker 2: are based in the body and based in mindfulness and
14:15
Speaker 2: that understand, you know, the neuroscience of the background of
14:20
Speaker 2: trauma and that you can use within your own processes.
14:25
Speaker 2: Sometimes what we teach or eye teaching, but I also
14:29
Speaker 2: usually have a co facilitator because I really like to
14:32
Speaker 2: teach in the two languages, and I pretty much insist
14:37
Speaker 2: on teaching in the two languages in the Hebrew in
14:40
Speaker 2: Arabic or English in Arabic, so that they will hear
14:44
Speaker 2: it already in Arabic, that they will feel it in Arabic,
14:47
Speaker 2: because when you go into their inner landscapes, really need
14:50
Speaker 2: your own mother tongue in there. So that's something that
14:53
Speaker 2: we're doing all sort of special. But when we come
14:56
Speaker 2: we sort of like give sort of like an overview
15:02
Speaker 2: of the what now is known about trauma and the
15:07
Speaker 2: processes of the trauma in the nervous system, in the brain,
15:11
Speaker 2: probably vagel theory, things like that, And we also teach
15:17
Speaker 2: mindfulness in a nutshell, but just to give some kind
15:21
Speaker 2: of a sense of that quality of attention. And also
15:28
Speaker 2: then we go into some resourcing a lot of times
15:32
Speaker 2: would be the first thing, and how to build resources,
15:36
Speaker 2: and then a little bit to talk about titration and
15:40
Speaker 2: and you know, simple tools. Sometimes we bring tools actually
15:44
Speaker 2: from not from Peter's work, but from his student's work,
15:49
Speaker 2: Elaine Harrass I don't know if you know her, but
15:54
Speaker 2: doing really good work. And I studied with her and
15:56
Speaker 2: she actually invited me over to Turkey to work with her.
15:59
Speaker 2: So so she has some all sorts, some great tools
16:02
Speaker 2: to bring those in. And and also the mindfulness that
16:08
Speaker 2: we're bringing is mindfulness is adapted, it is broken down
16:15
Speaker 2: and and with a lot of questions about you know,
16:19
Speaker 2: where are they and how how is it for them?
16:23
Speaker 2: And uh, and of course after that we also supervised.
16:28
Speaker 2: I supervised supervision is usually what I do. And I
16:32
Speaker 2: supervised so they can bring, you know, things that happened
16:36
Speaker 2: with the soldiers or with the wounded warriors. Sometimes also
16:42
Speaker 2: with mothers and children that are coming over from Syria
16:46
Speaker 2: and and and to see how does it affect them.
16:51
Speaker 2: Also because we're also working with the secondary trauma and
16:54
Speaker 2: we're also working and that's what is what I sort
16:58
Speaker 2: of like was pointing out to before. We're also working
17:02
Speaker 2: with very difficult emotional conflicts because sometimes the person that
17:08
Speaker 2: the healthcare person is from a different faith than the
17:12
Speaker 2: people are coming from Syria, and they don't know exactly
17:16
Speaker 2: what these Serians have done before, but they could have
17:18
Speaker 2: actually been hurting their own faith. So there's sometimes like
17:23
Speaker 2: really difficult emotional conflicts which we need to supervise and
17:27
Speaker 2: to see how to you know, resource the healthcare person.
17:32
Speaker 1: Also, Yeah, that's a very interesting point and one I
17:39
Speaker 1: that's a very specific point, one I really haven't talked
17:42
Speaker 1: so much about on this podcast. Talk let's talk about
17:50
Speaker 1: me and how did that come about?
17:53
Speaker 2: Okay, it came about I think that was it maybe
17:59
Speaker 2: I think two to and a half years ago. It
18:02
Speaker 2: came about actually from a few corners, and I will
18:08
Speaker 2: tell you, I will say what you know, what was
18:12
Speaker 2: the what was the influence. One of the influences was
18:16
Speaker 2: actually an Israeli soldier that spoke very painfully about his
18:24
Speaker 2: experiences and how he wanted to give something back because
18:29
Speaker 2: he felt that he was really acting brutally and then
18:35
Speaker 2: sort of like incoherent, unintegrated way with his own value
18:41
Speaker 2: system whilst he was a soldier and he really wanted
18:43
Speaker 2: to give something back, and the refugees were on their
18:47
Speaker 2: way and what was happening in Syria brought up for him,
18:51
Speaker 2: you know, traumatic memories as well, and so he said,
18:56
Speaker 2: I wanted, you know, I want you to do something.
18:58
Speaker 2: I want to support something like that, that we could
19:01
Speaker 2: do something for the refugees with these tools they already experienced.
19:06
Speaker 2: Then we heard from Palestinians from the West Bank, because
19:09
Speaker 2: I have some connections for quite a few years, I've
19:13
Speaker 2: been in groups of Palestinians and Israelis. So we heard
19:18
Speaker 2: from the Palestinian side that they're having a lot of
19:22
Speaker 2: a lack actually of knowledge of mindfulness and they want
19:26
Speaker 2: to know more of it, but they don't have it
19:30
Speaker 2: in Arabic. And you know, they don't know Hebrew and
19:33
Speaker 2: English that well nowadays they used to, but nowadays they
19:36
Speaker 2: don't because of the closing off of the Palestinian state.
19:41
Speaker 2: So they asked us to have it in Arabic. And
19:44
Speaker 2: then I was working in Turkey and I was working
19:46
Speaker 2: with refugees themselves and the counselors to the refugees themselves,
19:50
Speaker 2: and with Eline carasp But we also understood, and we
19:53
Speaker 2: were hearing very closely that they need very basic tools
19:57
Speaker 2: in order to come back into their box. We found
20:01
Speaker 2: out that the culture there is very different, so like
20:04
Speaker 2: immediately they can go more easily into the emotions, but
20:08
Speaker 2: that sometimes creates even more upheaval in form oil, and
20:13
Speaker 2: we wanted to find a way that they could go
20:16
Speaker 2: and sort of ground and resource and come back to
20:21
Speaker 2: those building, you know, pieces of sensations. So all of
20:27
Speaker 2: that sort of like came to the understanding that we
20:29
Speaker 2: need to find a way to bring mindfulness to the
20:33
Speaker 2: crisis areas, but also that we need to bring mindfulness
20:37
Speaker 2: to refugees in their own language. That was very interesting
20:41
Speaker 2: as well, because Arabic is an amazingly rich language and
20:45
Speaker 2: it has many many dialects, so we have to sort
20:48
Speaker 2: of like focus on a dialect that is good for
20:50
Speaker 2: the Middle East, Palestinian Syrians, Iraqi Old Iraqi people's Jordanians.
20:57
Speaker 2: So that's sort of like a dialect that we tried
20:59
Speaker 2: to and you know, what would be its boundaries because
21:05
Speaker 2: it's sort of like it's sort of like more how
21:09
Speaker 2: you call it, like sort of like daily Arabic, you know,
21:13
Speaker 2: and spoken Arabic. And then the other thing was that
21:19
Speaker 2: we understood and that's something that's being understood now in
21:22
Speaker 2: the mindfulness field and the manfulst arena is that mindfulness
21:28
Speaker 2: per's sae cannot be a tool for top trauma. A
21:31
Speaker 2: lot of times, just like the puss in the past,
21:33
Speaker 2: a lot of times, it can bring out and up things.
21:38
Speaker 2: And if you don't have the tools to balance and
21:40
Speaker 2: you don't have you know, this understanding of how to
21:43
Speaker 2: regulate yourself, then it can be actually a hindrance.
21:48
Speaker 1: And it's not extra I think that's a really salient point.
21:52
Speaker 1: You're making an one to kind of highlight. So just
21:55
Speaker 1: to be clear, you're not saying mindfulness is you're introducing
22:00
Speaker 1: it simply to heal trauma, right right, And.
22:07
Speaker 2: We're also bringing into this mindfulness, we're bringing trauma informed knowledge,
22:14
Speaker 2: and it's it's going to be like we educate and
22:17
Speaker 2: things about trauma're going to educate about, you know, trauma
22:21
Speaker 2: informed mindfulness and inside the course that is being built.
22:27
Speaker 2: And we're also doing it culturally sensitive, which means that
22:31
Speaker 2: we're bringing metaphors that are more useful to the people
22:35
Speaker 2: that come from the afric world as well as not
22:39
Speaker 2: you know, making it very very very secular, so they
22:42
Speaker 2: do not feel that it's sort of like opposing their faith.
22:47
Speaker 2: But with what I would like to say about the
22:49
Speaker 2: traum sensitive or trauma informed mindfulness is that we bring
22:56
Speaker 2: things that you know now in trauma therapy you know already.
22:59
Speaker 2: But mindfulness in the old type of mindfuence and the
23:03
Speaker 2: traditional type of mindfulness, and even in junk about since mindforce,
23:07
Speaker 2: which is amazing, but you wouldn't think about resourcing somebody first. Okay.
23:17
Speaker 2: The actually in the tradition, Blish tradition, it is there
23:22
Speaker 2: specifically in the Mayana. Mayana really emphasizes that they resource
23:27
Speaker 2: yourself first, whether it's in loving kindness or or you know,
23:32
Speaker 2: tongueland or these are things that sort of like bring
23:36
Speaker 2: up compassion, which can be also self compassion that's also
23:39
Speaker 2: a resource. So and then you go into you know,
23:44
Speaker 2: deep seeing and into you know, coming closer to the
23:47
Speaker 2: pain and being able to sit with the pain.
23:50
Speaker 3: So we're trying to find a way that we'll have
23:55
Speaker 3: those we'll have the information about, you know, just like
24:00
Speaker 3: we speak of my mindfuls a lot of times, we
24:02
Speaker 3: speak about the breath being sort of like the rhapsody,
24:05
Speaker 3: a breath a lot of.
24:06
Speaker 2: Times was a resource. But we actually with trauma afflicted
24:11
Speaker 2: people can't always use the breath as the rest, you know,
24:16
Speaker 2: so we need to understand what else could you find,
24:20
Speaker 2: you know, your sort like resourcing or you're anchoring, and
24:25
Speaker 2: then work with that and start with very small segments.
24:30
Speaker 1: I just want to remind everyone that I'm speaking with
24:32
Speaker 1: Tria Ben David. She's a founder of the Mindfulness in
24:37
Speaker 1: Our Bic Project otherwise known as MIA. So this is
24:42
Speaker 1: a project in development and you're seeing to what raise
24:47
Speaker 1: funds to get this off the ground. Talk a little
24:51
Speaker 1: bit about literally how this thing is going to get
24:54
Speaker 1: off the ground.
24:56
Speaker 2: So we did the craft funding and we did get
24:58
Speaker 2: half of the money that we needed, have little funds
25:00
Speaker 2: that we needed, and so we're in the translation process
25:04
Speaker 2: and we're in the better phase, which is we're sending
25:07
Speaker 2: out to people that are willing to give us feedback.
25:10
Speaker 2: We're sending out the meditations, the documents, you know, the
25:15
Speaker 2: instructions to see, you know, to have this interactive approach
25:20
Speaker 2: with the people and to see, you know, what do
25:23
Speaker 2: we need to fill in or to omit, et cetera.
25:26
Speaker 2: And we're also we also have a group of advisors
25:31
Speaker 2: that have been working with the Arabic populations but come
25:35
Speaker 2: from the trauma field, and we're sort of like brainstorming
25:40
Speaker 2: one week after the other and what we really want
25:44
Speaker 2: we could benefit greatly from of course, for more funds
25:49
Speaker 2: so that we can finish this. You know, we have
25:52
Speaker 2: already the first two weeks. One of the weeks is
25:55
Speaker 2: on already saying week is becoming is now in the
25:58
Speaker 2: act coming on today Internet, and we would like to
26:03
Speaker 2: get more money because we also want the website to
26:06
Speaker 2: be interactive itself, because as we know, you know, people
26:09
Speaker 2: might need some help sometimes in certain situations. And what
26:16
Speaker 2: our biggest dream, and that is really I mean, if
26:19
Speaker 2: somebody wants to help us out with this, is to
26:24
Speaker 2: create the first facilitator course. There has never been a
26:28
Speaker 2: course in Arabic and we want to create the first
26:31
Speaker 2: train the trainer's course specifically for trauma informat or trum
26:36
Speaker 2: sensitive mindfulness. So that's sort of like the you know,
26:42
Speaker 2: the dream step right now.
26:45
Speaker 1: And how much more money do you need to get
26:49
Speaker 1: this going?
26:51
Speaker 2: I think that something between thirty thousand dollars and fifty
26:55
Speaker 2: thousand dollars would.
26:56
Speaker 1: Be and I can put a link up here in
27:00
Speaker 1: the show notes page for people to support, okay, and
27:03
Speaker 1: it also I think I mentioned it in your bio.
27:07
Speaker 1: You're being supported by some leading mindfulness individuals like John
27:13
Speaker 1: Cabots and Jack Cornfield and twer Brock. How did you
27:15
Speaker 1: get as affiliated with them? How did you bring them
27:17
Speaker 1: on board?
27:19
Speaker 2: You know, first of all, they're so generous people. Really,
27:22
Speaker 2: they're about really about in front of them. And I'm
27:27
Speaker 2: also studying now with Tara and Jack on the two
27:31
Speaker 2: year Mindfulness Teacher Training course, and they offered that also
27:37
Speaker 2: as a stipend because it was really so generous. That's amazing.
27:42
Speaker 2: John also was very generous. He really wants this, you know,
27:46
Speaker 2: out there. He really wants it to be a he
27:50
Speaker 2: really believes in this tool, and he wants it to
27:52
Speaker 2: you know, to arrive too many populations as possible. But
27:56
Speaker 2: also the other sort of like mindfulness teachers and my
28:00
Speaker 2: first communities, we're very happy to support us. And I
28:06
Speaker 2: think that part of it is also and Jack and
28:09
Speaker 2: Joseph Bulchdaine was also and because first of all, I
28:14
Speaker 2: was their student many years back, you know, Joseph was
28:17
Speaker 2: my first teacher actually, and and John was in the
28:24
Speaker 2: Cambridge UH Inside Society where Larry was the teacher, and
28:31
Speaker 2: he was also my teacher and uh and later on
28:34
Speaker 2: I was also facilitating and teaching vipasana and mindfulness and
28:39
Speaker 2: intercourses here in Israel and abroad. So I think that
28:43
Speaker 2: also that that you know, I'm a professional in the
28:46
Speaker 2: field sort of like also attracted them that they felt
28:50
Speaker 2: that they could support this.
28:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, the you know, before we go, I want to
28:57
Speaker 1: kind of hone in on the population you're serving here
29:03
Speaker 1: with refugees and displaced people talk a little bit about
29:10
Speaker 1: their needs.
29:17
Speaker 2: Well in there's so many needs there, you know, but
29:27
Speaker 2: you can feel that when somebody is you know, doesn't
29:31
Speaker 2: have roots, and when you're being bomb when you're being
29:38
Speaker 2: you know, thrown away from your own place, when you're
29:42
Speaker 2: being thrown away from your culture, from your language, when
29:46
Speaker 2: you don't really know when you'll be coming back. Because
29:50
Speaker 2: in the beginning people were thinking that they're going back
29:52
Speaker 2: pretty soon, you know, but it follows when you're after
29:56
Speaker 2: the other end, you're not really sure you're going to
29:58
Speaker 2: be back. So you know, and you've been there are
30:02
Speaker 2: many issues of loss, not only you know, h being
30:09
Speaker 2: thrown away or not grounded, but also these really deep
30:13
Speaker 2: feelings of loss and and and a lot of fear,
30:17
Speaker 2: and a lot of times that comes, you know, in
30:21
Speaker 2: very small ways. A lot of times that does not
30:25
Speaker 2: help them to adapt to a new place. Just like
30:29
Speaker 2: what I was being about with my aunt. You know,
30:34
Speaker 2: that's sort of like limbo place you know that you
30:38
Speaker 2: don't know, and you don't know, so where's your next step?
30:42
Speaker 2: You know where? And you've been pushed from one place
30:45
Speaker 2: to the other. And uh. And sometimes also that the
30:49
Speaker 2: families are displaced, like I was working with a woman
30:53
Speaker 2: in Jerkey that part of her family is in Germany,
30:56
Speaker 2: part of her family is still in Syria and they
30:59
Speaker 2: can't see each other anymore. All they can see each
31:02
Speaker 2: other now is in the zoom. And we're speaking about
31:04
Speaker 2: a mother, a father, you know, a sister or brother,
31:07
Speaker 2: and they don't know when they're going to be seeing
31:09
Speaker 2: each other again. And this we're talking about a traditional
31:12
Speaker 2: society when it's you know, opposing the Western society, where
31:16
Speaker 2: there would not be such an issue that they wouldn't
31:19
Speaker 2: see each other, you know, they would live very closely
31:22
Speaker 2: to each other. And then also of course there are
31:26
Speaker 2: wounds of the flesh, not only wolves of the emotional side,
31:30
Speaker 2: and there things that they saw that were horrific, people dying,
31:38
Speaker 2: you know, on the land and see uh. And and
31:44
Speaker 2: the surprise the betrayal of one community against the other
31:49
Speaker 2: as well, because there were some communities there that were
31:52
Speaker 2: invited a few years back to live with them, but
31:57
Speaker 2: once the war began, they were immediately you know, they
32:01
Speaker 2: became the enemy. And this happens in kinds of situations
32:07
Speaker 2: where there is very great violence and people are not
32:11
Speaker 2: feeling secure anymore. So there's a lot of betrayal happening
32:15
Speaker 2: as well, and betrayal is also trauma a lot of
32:19
Speaker 2: We work with that a lot as well. So out
32:23
Speaker 2: of those places, you know, come the needs as well.
32:28
Speaker 2: That a lot of times self regulations, emotional self regulation,
32:35
Speaker 2: a lot of times just to you know, bring a
32:38
Speaker 2: little bit more clarity into the situation. They do need
32:45
Speaker 2: to approach situations and to be able to solve, you know,
32:51
Speaker 2: and to be able to choose things, and a lot
32:54
Speaker 2: of times, as we know, in trauma, that is not there,
32:58
Speaker 2: you know, so we want to work with them so
33:00
Speaker 2: that they will be able to come to that position
33:03
Speaker 2: that they feel that they can solve and decide for themselves, so,
33:07
Speaker 2: you know, and of course communication of course, to be
33:11
Speaker 2: able to communicate their needs and to be able to
33:14
Speaker 2: communicate their feelings and to return as we say, the
33:21
Speaker 2: locus of control. So inside the crisis situation, and being
33:25
Speaker 2: a refugee that sometimes feels a little bit magallomannic or
33:28
Speaker 2: a little bit you know, out of the logic. But
33:32
Speaker 2: we found that even small steps of these are really important,
33:37
Speaker 2: and the people feel it and they come and they
33:41
Speaker 2: come with a lot of thanks and a lot of
33:43
Speaker 2: gratitude when they feel it with small changes.
33:47
Speaker 1: I mean, I think what you're doing is just phenomenal.
33:50
Speaker 1: I'm just listening to talk, you know, in response to
33:53
Speaker 1: my question about the needs, it just seems overwhelming and
33:56
Speaker 1: I could just imagine as a clinician what would be like.
34:01
Speaker 4: I'm not going to say I can imagine what would
34:03
Speaker 4: be like as a refugee, but just from what you're saying,
34:05
Speaker 4: it just sounds overwhelming again, And I love what you
34:09
Speaker 4: said about just these small incremental steps are going to
34:13
Speaker 4: be so important.
34:15
Speaker 1: Did you As we close out here, I want to
34:17
Speaker 1: ask you about any go to book recommendation for our listeners, anything,
34:22
Speaker 1: whether it's trauma related or mindfulness related or not. What
34:24
Speaker 1: would you what would you recommend?
34:27
Speaker 2: Okay, so, of course, first of all, I would say
34:30
Speaker 2: Waiting Tiger, but I guess a lot of people have
34:32
Speaker 2: said that already. By Peter Lavine, I really like it.
34:36
Speaker 2: I also like Giness Ross Manuel that she's sort of
34:40
Speaker 2: like created from Wagging Tiger and it's I think it's
34:45
Speaker 2: from the trauma vortex to the healing bar text. But
34:50
Speaker 2: those are sort of like very sort of like basic.
34:52
Speaker 2: But I would like to say there's a book by
34:56
Speaker 2: Michael or laughlin and I I would recommend to look
35:01
Speaker 2: for it. It's from twenty fourteen. It's called Fragments of
35:05
Speaker 2: Trauma and the Social Production of Suffering and it's a
35:09
Speaker 2: very interesting book for people that want to think about
35:13
Speaker 2: the ways that trauma can affect society.
35:17
Speaker 1: Okay, so Fragments of Trauma and the Social Production of
35:20
Speaker 1: Suffering Trauma, History and Memory, and that's by Michael O'Laughlin. Okay,
35:26
Speaker 1: i'll have that link up here speak.
35:29
Speaker 2: Of course. The other thing is David Trilivan's latest book,
35:34
Speaker 2: My infullnes Is Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness right.
35:38
Speaker 1: Also a previous guest on the podcast here, I want
35:42
Speaker 1: to thank you so much you've you've brought to this
35:45
Speaker 1: podcast another chapter of what needs to be addressed in
35:54
Speaker 1: this world, in this unfortunately giant world of trauma that
36:00
Speaker 1: we're living in now. But I love the voice you bring.
36:03
Speaker 1: You to this and I look forward to helping you
36:06
Speaker 1: support your project, mindfless and Arabic project. I'll have a
36:14
Speaker 1: link to the show notes page if people want to
36:16
Speaker 1: help support you, if they want to donate, and we'll
36:20
Speaker 1: do what we can here. But it's been an honor
36:23
Speaker 1: having you on your owner. Thank you so much, very much.
36:25
Speaker 2: Also been an honor, Thanks An.