In this episode we explore the life of Eva Dalak, a Palestinian Muslim woman who grew up in Jewish Israel, attended a Christian school and ended up in Costa Rica- the country without an army. Eva's life has been profoundly marked by war. As a young person, she learned to survive by disconnecting from her emotions and fighting for her rights. She shares how her father's poignant question, "How is your soul?" helped her confront internal struggles like fear, shame and anger. Later, a surprising diagnosis that left her blind during the pandemic, led her to discover the power of community; the importance of embracing a new identity; and the healing potential of allowing oneself to receive love.

Her story is a testament to the transformative potential of crisis: the emergence of a new self as a result of life's trials is possible. Tune in to hear how Eva made "honey from her darkness" by shaping her work in conflict resolution and inviting people on both sides of the conflict to look inward in order to truly achieve peace.

AUTOMATIC TRANSCRIPTION*

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Hello, friends. I'm Christine Rain and this is the second season of the Heroines Journey podcast. Because life evolves, the teachings continue and the journey never ends. They say, we're made of stories here. We explore the most transcendental stories of extraordinary people who, like you, are going through processes of transformation, death and rebirth and reclaiming their truths.

In this episode, I talk to my friend Eva that like a Palestinian Muslim woman who grew up in Jewish Israel and attended a Christian school marked by the consistent presence of war, ever learned to survive by disconnecting from her emotions through her father's poignant question How is your soul? Eva confronts parts of herself with visitors such as fear, shame and loneliness. In this beautiful, insightful conversation, Eva discusses the support she received during an unexpected surgery, the importance of embracing a new identity and the transformative power of community and love.

Eva, welcome. Thank you for being here. I know that you're travelling in Europe right now and that you have a lot going on.

So thank you so much for for your time and for joining us.

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Thank you, Christine. Thank you for inviting me. Very happy to be here.

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My friend Eva Dulac is an accomplished facilitator, trainer and coach with 30 years of experience since she has led dynamic programs in nonviolent communication and leadership and facilitated multicultural teams in Africa. And the Middle East to achieve conflict transformation and strategic organizational change. More recently, she founded Peace Activation, which she'll be telling us a little bit about today. But where are you now, Eva?

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I'm actually calling from a Peace castle, the Austrian Peace Council in Stuttgart, claiming

it's a place that is dedicated for peace building and promoting peace. So lots of people from conflict zone come here to learn about third party intervention,

peacebuilding, gender, conflict analysis. So that's what I'm teaching for day for this week.

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And I know that you're pretty familiar with the heroine's journey because we got to live together for a while and you read the book and you listen to the podcast. So I don't need to explain too much about what it's about. And so let's dive right in because you have such a fascinating story that led you to do this amazing work that you do, and I want people to learn about it. We're starting with the question, Can you think of a moment in which your life changed drastically because of an unexpected event?

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What did the masculine represent for you?

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I think the masculine in a patriarchal society. I mean, I grew up in a muslim conservative family, in a studied in a Christian Jesuit school, a growing up in a Jewish state, and in all three religion, the masculine, very strong patriarchal society and the masculine and presented the power and the power over my life, the power of decision making, the power of choice, the power of freedom, freedom of action, a freedom of really unlimited and unconditional freedom versus me having specific roles, expectation that I needed to answer to and that I rebelled against.

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It sounds like the masculine represented lack of choice, and I know that freedom is really important for you. How did you fight for that freedom? How did you end up studying abroad and doing a lot of things that Muslim women don't usually do?

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Yeah, freedom is a core value for me as a woman and as a Palestinian. You know, growing up Palestinian in a Jewish state when the other part of the family is in Gaza and some in Nablus and some in Jordan. And so it's really how can I seek freedom within a society and the culture and the religion that is already constrictive. And in addition to that, under occupation, whether it's mental occupation like we have in Israel, that's what I call our occupation. Palestinians in Israel have such a confused identity, or at least for me, I had such a confused identity. And then the physical occupation, which is in the West Bank and Gaza. For me, studying abroad, like I earned a scholarship to live and studying trends. And that was the first step to for freedom, which is interesting because I was in a French school and the main reason why my mom kept me there was that because it had a heavy structure and it was finishing until 3 p.m. and for her it contained the energy, too much energy that I had, and she saw that within just a disciplined structure I would able to tone down my energy and it actually provided me the opportunity that I needed to travel abroad. Studying France and then start a whole career in international relations.

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What was your father's position when you made this decision?

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You know, I feel like all recollect the stories from our own point of view. And so for me, I fought for my freedom by earning this scholarship, But for my mum and dad's perspective, I earned his freedom because I worked hard for it and it was an honour for them to have their daughters study abroad. Yeah, even if the society or the family didn't necessarily agree with their decision, they did support it because they saw the opportunity for my dad. It was very important. Education was very important. And so he saw that as an opportunity. And at the same time, I think if I had to fight them in my perspective, in my collection, I fought for it In their recollection. When we spoke about it later, it was they allowed me. And so it's interesting, this dichotomy between giving permission and not needing permission. And I encountered that in different context.

My dad represented really at the time represented the wisdom. Now, after that's when I discovered after his death, I just discovered how much of my own wisdom or or the sentence that I say come from him, from things small sentence that he used to tell me when I would call from from from university or when I had hard time. And one of the key question he would ask me every time he would speak is How is your soul doing? If money were yet to count, how do you feel? And I'm really there was always two question. One is like, how am I feeling? How is my my soul, my mama, How do I feel? And the other is, what did I eat? And in a way, later on, it was like, Wow, he was really tackling it, my feeding my soul and on what am I feeding my body? And I think it's this wisdom that I carry within me, but that I didn't realize while I was receiving it.

And I remember when I heard about his death, I was in Nicaragua, in Ometepe, an island. So it took me 48 hours before I could actually arrive. I was devastated because I realized he was the master I always seeked. You know, I had him there present, instilling me some words of wisdom. But because of my fight for my freedom, I couldn't receive it or I didn't allow it really to to unfold. I couldn't see it in that moment and in what is interesting. So I said the first rupture was my dad's death and it it continued till I lost my eyesight. 2 to 3 years later, in COVID, I lost my eyesight literally. And that just like figuratively.

Well, and before we before we talk about that, I just wanted to go back a second and

recognize, wow, it must have been really difficult to receive news like that when you were on the other side of the world. How did you receive the news? What what was that moment like?

I remember it as if it was yesterday. Every day I wake up very early and I the first thing I do, I open my phone because I work internationally. So a lot of the news and work I have come from Europe and that specific moment on a Friday, I woke up and I went to do an Osho meditation, a dance meditation, and I didn't open my phone until 3 hours later. So actually during the passing I was dancing and then I was unknowingly I was connecting to his soul, to his basi. And it's really unlikely for me to like, wake up and not take the phone. And so when I ended up opening my phone and checking my messages,

Well, do you think these moments of rupture somehow connect us with something we need to know or see unconsciously?

Yes. I really believe that life is a school and we have our curriculum and I feel this moment of rupture is the exam. It's like we're passing the exam that we're passing off. Like everything that I've ever worked in personal development, in my meditation practice, in my yoga practice, whatever practice that I have, I needed to lean on to that, to continue living. And so I feel like this moment of rupture

brings us to I call it it brought me to my knees like and the knees symbolise the relationship, the ego, the relationship with the other. And I feel like it really brought me to my knees to understand how much I didn't appreciate and I didn't listen to the wisdom that was wanting to be transmitted. And I and I wasn't accepting it.

Well, it sounds like, well, first of all, like you, since you were a young girl, you had to fight or you felt you had to fight a lot to be able to receive higher education, to travel the world, to do something that you were passionate about. And in that process of fighting, you fought your parents as well because they were they represented this the traditional family. It also sounds like while you were travelling and studying abroad, you said you were looking for a teacher and you found out in this moment that your father died, that he had been the teacher that you were seeking this whole time, and that with those small questions that he would ask you when, when he checked in with you, of how you were nurturing your body and your soul, there was a moment of realization. And I'm just wondering what happened after his death, after after this realization that you had what were the internal ogres and dragons that you were battling with at the time? And what was what if, if at all? What were you most afraid of in that moment?

I think I was afraid to mourn. I was afraid to grieve. I didn't take the time to grieve, which is why I lost my eyesight. I feel like Spirit got me to the next phase, like, Oh, you didn't get this first lesson. Let me give you another one. And I feel I was really battling. After my dad died in February, I came and came to visit my my mom and my family, too, and to be mourning with them. But the way they were mourning couldn't I couldn't resonate with this type of grief. It was a lot of it was a lot of very religious and and mourning in a way that didn't actually allow space for the expression of emotions, because this is what I decided. You know, it's like, yeah, it's okay. This is God's decision. It's always for the better. And and for me, I didn't have space to really express the amount of anger I had towards myself for not being there. I felt a lot of anger. I was battling with a lot of self judgement and I think what happened was running further, engaging even more into my work and in even deeper into travels and workload and overwhelmed. And so not taking the time at all to be to be with Dad. Grief was just sadness except for specific moments.

So you weren't able to find that space with your family, but then you didn't make that space for yourself either. You just kind of like consumed yourself in work and which I think is is something that happens to a lot of us when we're going through a really difficult moment. It's easy to move into what distracts us the most so that we don't feel that pain, you know? And for some people it's parting. And for some people it's work. And for some people it's something else. Right? But noticing now that you consumed yourself even more in work, why do you think you did that?

I think for two reasons. I remember that morning I had to call at night, so I had the news at 6 a.m. and I had to call at 9 a.m. to for a new mission in Madagascar. And I was speaking with my assistants that my dad passed. Oh, I have these calls. I'm going to do the call and then I'm going to rest or so. And I remember, bless her heart, Natalia was like, You're not doing any call. I'm sending a message saying you're not available for the next couple of weeks and you just take care of you. And that shocked me because I realized I'm like, She's so right. Why am I not able. Well, how how, how come I need her to decide for me? But I was in such a state of shock, and I think that's what happened. I didn't really realize or even integrate the fact that she was gone. I think even like sometimes, even today, I still don't realize that he's gone. And I, I think it's really hard to accept reality as is. Or for me, it was really hard to accept that he died and I wasn't there. And so I consumed myself with work and with self judgement and feeling of guilt.

And I'm wondering if there's something about the context of being born in a in a place of war where a lot of war was happening.

I think it's a disconnect. It's the disconnect is actually this is the element. When you're born in a in a place of war, you learn very easy. It's part of your defense mechanism to disconnect from your feeling, because if you dive into your feelings, then you have to feel how to feel reality as it is. And we're living under occupation and we're living in a traumatized state. And my, my, my family, I mean, my my dad was born the war and then they got married in the war. I was born in a war like all of our major event in the family are are marked by war. And so you learn constantly to disconnect from your emotions. And and also the tradition, the Muslim tradition of like you're always grateful for whatever happens. You're grateful even now with what's happening in Gaza, you speak to Palestinian and they will still laugh. And you're like, What are you grateful for? Like, you know, it's it's really hard even to to pierce this veil of gratitude to God.

And it also sounds like you were on a hero's journey, right? Like you were proving yourself to the world you were feeling useful, you were getting called into conflict zones. You were doing peace trainings, right. You you worked at the United Nations before that as well. And you were on this journey to prove yourself to the world, to your parents. And so I wonder if just being with your emotions and recognizing that part of yourself didn't feel like part of the equation because it wasn't productive.

Yeah, it wasn't productive. It wasn't efficient. It didn't look good. It was weak, vulnerable at the time. Vulnerability for me was like weakness. Now I consider it differently, and I think that's what the losing of my eyesight taught me.

You know, life gave me this really hard trial, which was the rapture. It's the exam. And I wasn't able to see a lot of the things that life was trying to teach me. So what what was the second rupture that happened in your life?

The second rupture happened just in December 2019. I lost my eyesight. I went for a normal eye checkup and it actually happened. And immediately after the death of my father, I had an eye checkup and the person said, Oh, you have a dot in your in your macula. You have to check it out. And I dismissed it. I just continue life as usual, consumed by work, didn't want to deal with anything that wasn't really work. And two two years later I progression made it because I didn't deal with it. I lost my eyesight. I like the hole in the retina, grew so much that I wasn't able to see anymore and I had to do an operation like with no chances of recuperating my vision, my eyesight, that there was no guarantee that I would actually recuperate my eyesight.

I'm just so moved by what you're saying because it reminds me of getting my annual

gynecologist checkup and her feeling something on my breast. And also saying, you know, you need to check that out. It's, you know, nothing to be worried about. But you should you should check it out soon. And I had it unchecked for months because I was consumed by my work. I really identified with what you're saying of being productive and being efficient. And work was always more important than taking care of myself and my body until I got cancer. I got diagnosed with cancer six or seven months later. And so I'm just stunned listening to your story of how our body tries to speak to us and speak to us and speak to us. And a whisper can become a scream if we're not listening.

And it's really it for me, it's really life lessons that we've chosen to reincarnate in. And it's it's a way of like way of being that is very masculine and disconnected because that's what a society that is based on patriarchal value is teaching us. And this disconnect of the feminine is actually the response of our bodies. Like, Hey, I'm here, and the feminine here is really that the silence, intuition, the self-care, the self-love. And we have such a disconnect that it's either or and we're not understanding. I feel like for me at least, the lesson for me was like, No, it's not either or. It's like I can be productive and taking care of myself. One doesn't come at the expense of the other and I don't need to get sick so that I can take care of me.

Or I don't need to get sick to listen to my body, to listen to my body's wisdom and to what it's trying to say. Oh my gosh. I can imagine what it must be like to feel someone say that you're losing your eyesight and that you need an operation and you might not get your eyesight back. What what happened in that moment?

Yes, absolutely. You know what? I thought it was being dramatic. So that was in in January 2020 and I was in Costa Rica, San Jose. And I'm like, oh, is this Latino is just being dramatic. I'll go to Israel and get my eye checked. And I'm sure, you know, like, I didn't believe it. And I think it's again, it's the disconnect from reality. Like you don't want to believe that this is actually the diagnosis. And and so I didn't do anything with it. You talk about like you didn't do anything with the diagnosis after a month. I didn't do anything with it. I'm like, oh, well, let me see what I can, you know, work with alternative medicine, a different type of

psychotherapy, different type of, you know, suggestion, energy, work, a

And what happened?

It didn't come back. And we needless to say, it didn't come back. It actually worsened. I went for another checkup and the doctor say, well, okay, like this has really gotten very, very quickly worse than expected, and that I needed to do the operation, even if it wasn't sure that I would regain my eyesight. But if I didn't do the surgery, it was for sure I'm going to lose my eyesight. So there was a slight chance that I would gain it, but there was 100% chance that if I don't do anything, I would probably lose it. And I did it, you know, fought with this slight chance. I didn't want to take the chance. I was I was so afraid and consumed by my fear and denial because it both had to go hand in hand. The fear girl was the denial of reality. Because as long as I deny reality, I don't need to face my fear of I'm losing my eyesight. And so I was living in the jungle, had my family, my kids, my partner, and it was COVID so nobody could see anybody any way. And I was living we were living really to our day to day life was okay. And I'm like, okay, this is my life. I was willing to give up. I was really willing to give up and continue life. And I did own term and I, I realize now I wasn't willing to fight for my life even though I was a fighter all my life. I felt like this was such a hard break for me that I felt I lost everything. And when I now retrospectively, I remember that from all things that could have happened, this was the worst for me like. And I always said I can lose my I don't know, break my leg, break like whatever, have anything but losing my eyesight. And that's what happened. It's like your worst nightmare becomes your reality and then you have to deal with it.

Ara What? What did it take for you? I know that eventually you did decide to do surgery. What did your family have anything to do with this? Like what? What was their response to your to your denial? I think what you said, that denial of reality and fear to go hand in hand is very is very true and very profound. And I'm just wondering what the dynamic with your family was in this moment.

You know, it's interesting. I don't feel I even took a decision to take the surgery. I think the decision was taken for me and it was just reflecting about that before our call because I was speaking with my mom and that that day she was my mom's question has always been rather than a how do you feed your soul as well? I mean, are you working or are you earning money? How is the work going? And such is like, how is your work doing? And and I say, Well, I'm not working, mom. Like, I don't see. And she's like, What do you mean you don't see her Mom I haven't been seeing for four months, like I don't see. And she didn't get it. Like I was in denial, but she was even more in denial and I guess denial more than misunderstanding. Like she didn't really understand and that I wasn't literally seeing. Literally seeing.

Because you hadn't told her.

I think I didn't realize that. I didn't tell her that it was such a part of my reality that I actually didn't announce it. You know, I didn't like many people didn't know. I would just like, oh, yeah, I don't see I just like going along my life. And so for some people it's like, okay, you lost your vision. But on a symbolic level, many people, many friends didn't actually understand. No, I literally cannot see. I lost my vision like I lost my eyesight. And so that day my mom, it dawned on her and she's like, You don't see You mean like you don't see? And I'm like, Yes, I don't see. And I remember I cried. She cried. And then we turned off the phone and the next morning she's like, You don't see? And I'm like, Yes, mom, I still don't see yesterday. And she's like, But you cannot like, you have to do the operation, the surgery. And I said, But like, there's no chance, Like it's such a slight chance for me to recuperate my eyesight. I don't I don't want to go through the surgery. And she's like, even if it's the slightest chance, you have to do the surgery. And I remember it's interesting because for Bruce as well, my partner said, even if there's one, the slightest chance you have to do the surgery because you would never know. And and if my friend like a whole community between my family and my friends and families, that the decision was taken like I didn't really have a choice anymore. Like literally a friend of mine just like, drove me to the doctor and said, Arrange this for you. Like, you know, because for me, it was also, while going through the process, I was running the logistical aspect of it. Okay, If I because the whole process was would take two months to recuperate and I'm like, I don't have two months like, but at the same time I didn't have anything else to do.

Like what role did your community and your your friends and family play in all of this, apart from helping you make the decision or making the decision for you?

Yeah. Who would take care of the kids? Who would take it? Who would take care of, you know, like, just like the caring activities? And and I think ultimately really fear. I think it was several components. One was the logistical component of it, because I was living in the jungle 3 hours, three or 4 hours away from San Jose. And this surgery had to do in San Jose. It was the financial resources that I didn't have as a consultant and COVID stepping and all our own financial resources and income generating activity that we had around our business was stopping. So also financial consideration were a big part of it. And, and also just to support that my kids and my partner would have while I was away was also an important consideration. So Fabrice, his mom, came to stay with wisdom. A friend of mine, like I had a whole series of friends that would come every week to stay with me. While that was recuperating. I had financial support from my family, from my friends. So really, like all the condition was there for me, just like to rest and and heal. And I was fighting it.

How did it feel to receive?

Didn't feel good. It blocked my whole back, thinking about receiving, you know, receiving is in and this pain like the the day I received because it had a whole fundraiser that a friend of mine initiated that that got me the support within three, three days which was super quick and just testimony of the love and affection and support I had from around the world, from friends really around the world. And and I had my my back was block and went to the surgery was a blocked back because I just couldn't receive I was feeling ashamed that I received all this support. I was feeling ashamed that people knew I couldn't see. I was feeling ashamed that people knew I didn't have money when I was like the successful, independent, free woman. Suddenly I was like needing help, needing support, needing money and shame and blame and guilt. I think, like it's really just three feelings that are such a low frequency and just put you put me and put everybody down in a way. And we're witnessing it now in the world, just like feeling ashamed, feeling guilty for not having taken care of myself earlier and, and, you know, blaming blaming myself for the whole process. And so with such a goal, constructive or deconstructive, self judgement, there was no place for compassion. There was no, no, no place for empathy. Even so, that's what I was teaching, but I wasn't applying it for myself.

In what moment did all of this shift?

I think it's still shifting.

It shifted. I think so. It had I had two surgeries, so the first surgery I had, it succeeded. You know, we say the surgery succeeded, but the patient died. And so the surgery succeeded. But I didn't see I didn't recuperate my eyesight. So I was still another year in in influence. And so I was really devastated because I really felt I even felt responsible to heal. So because everybody was supporting me. So my responsibility was to heal and it wasn't healing fast enough. And think that was really destructive for me. I couldn't relax and imagine like I was a high speed train travelling the world and suddenly I was doing nothing. I couldn't do anything, not even cook for myself. And I was dependent upon help from forever. I think it was horrific. It was really horrible. I was so depressed. I was very sad. I'm a joyful person. My joy just left me. I was listening to a lot of meditation, lots of audiobooks, and just feeling so sorry for myself. And in the process, you know, like I have, I had beautiful two beautiful kids. I mean, I still have them, but at the time there were six and four and I remember there was so they were supporting me like they were really holding my hands in moments of, of deep, deep sorrow. And then my partner that suddenly doesn't have a partner, have someone have like really a third person to take care of, which was really hard. And at the same time, while going through the process, I was also not allowing myself to go through the process. So I was holding session. Then I called them Dancing in the Dark, so I was holding Zoom calls for other people that are going through this uncertain time. It was COVID time. A lot of people were in uncertainty, in the unknown, in darkness. We were all going through a darkness. And so I was holding this monthly call and

discussing how how do we feel around that. I think right now I think I just didn't allow myself to be and to receive and to rest and recuperate. I was really wanting to, like, heal fast or faster. I do want to take the time. I was really upset. A And a lot of this learning came afterward. I realize now that I'm not I initiated executive activation was what's going on right now with Gaza and Israel. I realize now that what I'm applying now is what I learned then. But anytime I so wanted immediately to learn the lesson in the harrowing journey and step into the next door. And I realized that it's not.

You wanted to to bring in the hero's energy into the heroine's journey.

Exactly. Exactly.

Come on, quick, efficient. I'm ready. Where's the lesson? Let's move on. Instead of understanding that things have their own pace and their own time and that patience and stillness is required.

Or patience and stillness were my horrific enemies.

Does it still feel that way?

No. No. Right now, stillness and patience are my best friends. But they had to earn it. They had to earn the respect.

It sounds like this moment, you know, where you had the first operation and you weren't able to see and you went through this horrible depression and were not able to do all these activities that not only made you feel useful and productive, but probably were deeply tied to your sense of self-worth and identity. So for in the heroine's journey, we think of this moment as the symbolic death. And I'm wondering. What stories about yourself and about the world did you leave behind after this experience?

I think One of the most important stories I left behind is that vulnerability is weakness

and that I that I'm independent and in control of my life. That's another story.

And that I can do life on my own terms. You know, it really understood. I gained such a deep understanding of how how the universe is has my back, not only my dad, but like the universe has my dad has my back, and how much love and support I have if I just allow it. I learned how and I say it often in my prayer is is like how much grace is surrounding me. Really. When I allow Grace to embrace me, how embraced I am by grace and it's really it takes me to allow it. It's like I don't need to fight for it. I don't need to pay for it, I don't need to do anything. And I think in this moment of like the stillness and the patience are what bring what allow grace to come to show up. And it never shows up the way I expected it to show up. And that's the other piece, you know, like it's really I call this whole experience dancing in the dark because I remember after I would get like before I after the first surgery, I had a friend that came to stay with me and she's like, What do you want to do? Do you want to eat? And I would like, no. And I was really depressed. And she's like, Do you want to hear some music? I said, Yes. And she put some music and you know, Aisha played the deejay and she puts different type of music. And suddenly I felt like the urge to dance

and dance is like my biggest joy in life. I love dancing and I. I feel like I'm the embodiment of freedom and joy when I dance. I just like it's so much fun and suddenly dancing while not seeing was so scary. But I really wanted to dance. And I remember I kept telling your to Do I have space to dance? Is it okay to dance this way or this way? She's like, Yeah, you have space. You have space. You have a lot of space. Just like, go for it. But I was so hesitant and I remember when I regained my eyesight in that same place and I saw all this space I had, I'm like, Oh my God. I kept dancing around the same area because I was afraid to go further, even though she was reassuring me that I had space, I didn't trust it. And that's really the symbol for me of life is like I have all this space to dance and play in my creation and co-create, and yet I'm just like playing small because I'm just afraid and not trusting that I actually have all this space to dance. And it's really one of for me, one of the most important lesson that I learned through this experience. And that's why I right now I dance, trusting. I don't see like I was thinking about, about it earlier, like what? What it gave me and what I want to give. What I'm passing was this activation is really holding hands. But I realized I had this experience for two years from 20 to 22 and I didn't realize how much support I have. I didn't realize how much space I have and how benevolent the universe is, and that everything is happening for us, not against. And no. And now I'm like, it's as if I jump in, in devoid and I'm jumping in the void. I have light meeting my feet. And with every step that I have, there's light meeting my feet. And so I can dance even in the void, because the light is is underneath me and holding me. And it's an image that is very, very strong for me because I did a whole journey with reconnecting with my ancestors and that was the image is like, Jump, Come will meet you where you are. And I feel like Spirit meets us in the point of action. But if we don't take action, we will never know. That spirit will meet us.

Ava, what would you tell someone who is going through a really difficult moment? Transition crisis like the one you went through with your eyesight and is struggling with asking for help and receiving support? What Would you tell them?

I would say embracing, embracing themselves and not have judgment on the situation. Really? Sometimes you don't even need to ask for help. Help comes, but we reject it because it doesn't come in the way that we think that it should come and I would just say embracing the moment, embracing one's self and allowing allowing grace to to come, allowing help to come, allowing and really keep praying for grace and finding it within it sounds it sounds very simple or simplistic, but what I learned really, like when I stopped fighting it, I saw how much support I had. And very often we feel rejected. We feel humiliated. Did we feel abandoned? We feel betrayed. We feel it's not just. And that's how I felt. These are like the five wounds of the human soul. This is what we all go through at different levels. But accepting that this is really my creation and the lessons that I chose to to learn in this lifetime. And so if I chose this lesson, there's a reason. So let me learn the lesson. And sometimes we ask for the lesson, but then we fight the teacher. It's like, no, you ask for the teacher. And the teacher came, Don't run away. Like meet the teacher. And the teacher here is is the shadow really is embracing our shadow, embracing the judgement we have on our self, on others, on the situation, embracing our ego. You know, we speak about the dark night of the soul. I call it the dark night of the ego, because the soul knows where it goes. It's the ego that is trying to defend us, thinking it's protecting us, but it's not. It protected. It came about in a time where we definitely needed it. We needed that defense mechanism and thank God it was there. But then we grow older and it's time to let go of this defense mechanism that was created in the time where we couldn't comprehend what was happening to us. Meaning between zero, sometimes even before we're born to seven years old.

The heroine's journey helps us see that part of disconnecting from the feminine. And again, this applies to all people, not just women, because we've all disconnected from the feminine is disconnecting from the truth that we are interdependent beings and that we can only strive and grow and flourish together. One of the phrases that we use a lot in the podcast is from a singer called Nick Moby, and he talks about making money from our darkness and gold from our disease and a second ago you talked about wanting to get to the nectar, right? I know that eventually you did recuperate your eyesight. And from what you're saying about the stories that you left behind there, there was a lot of nectar. And so I just want you to reflect a little bit or invite you to reflect on this idea that moments of chaos holds incredible potential and are pregnant with possibility. Does this resonate with you?

Absolutely, 100%. I wouldn't be who I am today without this journey, and I feel like this journey allows me to really bring the nectar for me. Speaks activation. It is this journey that allowed me to be able right now to hold space the way I hold space to stay anchored and centered in the midst of this chaos that the world is going through, especially my hometown, hometown, home country, in my tribe, my friends, my family. It's really staying anchored in the truth. And the truth is love. Like really for me, like blame, shame and guilt are like the three lower chakras and then the nectar comes when we connect to our heart. And while I was going through the journey off of my set and the healing process, the main mantra was Love is the answer and love for myself, for the situation, for the other love as an expression of who I truly am, allowing love to embrace me, grace and love. And I feel like then the moment of nectar is and the moment of God were like stepping stones for me to be who I am today. All of this journey, including the Rapture, was the Rapture was the death of my dad. I don't think I would have become who I am today had I continued with the same relationship.

And as a woman that was such a warrior and that incarnated so much. This fighting that you speak of, what has it meant to you and how how has it felt to make vulnerability an important part of your life?

I, I think it was a process. I didn't just like wake up one day and say, okay, I'm ready to be vulnerable. I think it's just like a moment's moment by moments, step stepping stone where people would ask me about how I feel and I didn't have the energy to lie because I couldn't see. And I think that's that's really important. I didn't have a choice but to be vulnerable. I didn't choose to be vulnerable. And that's important, key distinction, because I think unless I was forced to my knees to be vulnerable and ask for support, I wouldn't have done it because of the image I had of myself and the expectation I had of myself. And and remember, this is the force, my spirit, my force, my strength was to leave a hole country, society tradition, to be able to become who I am. And that takes quite a lot of force. You know. And so I couldn't just let go of this force. I had to have several ruptures like breaking me slowly but surely, breaking the walls. I have built around me because of the perception that the word is is my enemy, because the word want to subjugate me a because I'm a woman, because a muslim, because I'm this or because I'm dead. And as Palestinian like imagine I. I chose quite the story. A Palestinian woman, Muslim growing up in a Jewish state, learning in a Christian school. Like I had so much judgement that I had that I was carrying with me stones that I was carrying with me, rocks that I had two drops and and I was holding so strongly to them. And just like what the Buddha sounds like, it was cold that was burning my hands and yet I was holding them very strongly. And so I had to open my hands and release the call and say, okay, I do, I don't know, like this. I don't know. For a person that knows for the teacher that I am, for the coach, that I am for the guide, that I am, to say no, actually don't know. I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know why this is happening. And you know what? It's okay. It's okay not to know and it's okay to cry. And it's okay to share. And it's and anything that's happening is okay.

I love that. And again, as you speak, I can't help but think of the heroines during these qualities and one of them being the importance of holding questions and not being obsessed with the answers. We have to learn to hold these questions with grace and and have the humility to know that we don't know everything and that a lot of truths and a lot of things will unravel over time if we get clear on the question. But we have to get clear on the question and allow for space first.

Yeah. Yeah. And humbleness, like you're saying, humility, I think that what this taught me is a lot of humility. I was humbled by the experience. I was really deeply humbled and I'm still humbled. I still can't believe that I can see.

Well, tell us about that, because you didn't tell us. You didn't tell us about the second surgery. How did that happen?

So that happened also after a lot of trial and and crying and the resistance. Lots of resistance because I thought, okay, here I did the surgery. It didn't work. You see, I told you. And I was just, like, wanting to prove everybody wrong, feeling again, ashamed that I couldn't even heal. Like, I'm not even capable of healing after surgery. And and then I had another checkup. So I was. I was obviously having checkup as it was the doctor. And he's like, it's time for another surgery, because we waited just for the hole to close. And now we need to do another surgery so that you can see, like to do a cataract. And I didn't. It took me six months to do the surgery because I, I just couldn't I couldn't bring myself to do the surgery again, to fail again. And this. So as much as my first surgery was like very public and supported by my friend, my family and like, you know, a whole community coming together to do to do with me kind of the surgery. The second one, I really wanted to do it alone. I didn't want to I didn't dare to say anything to anybody. And remember, that's when I protected you to rent your house, to stay there, because I do want to stay at anybody's place. And I want to just to do the surgery and be in my own process so that in case it's not successful, I can just like go back to my cave and cry until I die or I don't know, I didn't have any plan, but I just knew that I just couldn't handle the vulnerability and the rawness of my own situation. And I remember I didn't even want my partner, my Fabrice, to come with me, and he was like, I'll go the next day. But like, let me just at least accompany you for the surgery. And I said, okay. And he came and I remember the next day when we removed the blindfold of the of the eyes and I could see and he's like, so he didn't dare to say more. He was just like holding his breath, waiting for me to say something. And I was afraid to say I was seeing, I could see. And I'm like, I see. I think I see. He's like, You think you see? It's either you see or you don't see. Like, do you see? And I'm like, I don't know. I think I see, I know. And he's like, Honey, you need to drop the identity. And that was key. You need to drop the identity of you not seeing so that you can embrace the new identity of your seeing. And when he said that, it clicked. I was like, Yeah, I like even my whole body posture was so close. I was protecting my heart. I was feeling miserable. I had so much pity on myself. I was feeling victim of my circumstances, of not seeing. And suddenly he's like, No, you can like literally open and see. And that was amazing. That was really like I kept looking around. I'm like, Oh, I can see this and I can see this and that gift, like reading things in this room. And I'm like, Oh, I can see this and I can read this. It was really like, like a child suddenly discovering the world was really, really beautiful process and and it's still unfolding. I still sometimes I'm like, and it's two years later and I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe I can see. So I have a deep appreciation for my life. I can even drive like I can drive as a person that didn't see for two years. It's like I can drive my car.

And I just think about as I hear your story and how it took you six months to get a surgery again, even though the doctor said it was urgent to get it. Like, I just think of all of the things that we don't do because we're afraid to fail or because we're afraid to see, to really see, really, really see. Reality as it is.

Is yeah, see reality as is allow grace to embrace us like seeing reality as is. And it's it seems really harsh and yet understanding that it's not harsh, that it's not against us this reality so I recuperated my eyesight in January 2021 and I'm like, okay, now that I can see, I have like I'm taking over the world again. And I entered again, consumed by my thinking that the next year was actually okay, I need to go back to my life as it was a new understanding, a new way of being. But basically it's still the same and no, then October seven happened and then I'm like, okay, now I understand why I lost my eyesight. I lost it so that I can still see when everything is dark and Celtic and crisis and we're lost and confused and we don't know. And we were uncertain and we feel betrayed and humiliated and abandoned and rejected. And yet in all this mixture of feeling, I can still feel loved and I can still provide love and safety from inside, inside out, and and from the warrior that I was, I am now a peace activator and peace activator, meaning that I activate the peace inside of me so that I can then activate it in my community.

Is that the gift that you feel you're bringing into this world now that this new ever has been born?

Yes, 100%. I feel like I'm finally at my place and I'm coming back home. And home is really where the heart is. And the heart is within me and the heart is in Palestine. And I understand why freedom is so important. I'm the embodiment of freedom because I'm Palestinian, and Palestine symbolizes freedom for all of us, not just for the Palestinian, even for the Israeli, because you cannot subjugate and occupy whole people and not feel prisoner of that same occupation. And I think the reason why a lot of people ride the the wave of Gaza and feel so torn is because this is it's really touching the core value of us as human being. We were born to be free. There's no other and there's no other major lesson that we came here to experience other than experiencing the freedom of choice, the freedom of choosing to be human and incarnate as a human. We are spiritual being. Having this human experience. And this human experience is about how can I regain my freedom, my freedom of choosing how I am, regardless of my identity, my culture, by race, my color, these or multiple identity are are meaningless without freedom.

Well, what a powerful message and how do you understand being of service after experience and now that you're doing it through activation, because I know that you've been at service your whole life, now you're at service in a different way, and perhaps you can explain a little bit also what peace activation is. Not only what it does, but what it is and how being of service has changed for you.

I think for most of us, including me we feel not worthy of being of service, we feel unworthy of sharing our gifts. We think that there's something out there that we need to reach to prove and validate who we are. And for me, right now, being of service is really sharing my gift just as I am being vulnerable is part of being at service, because then I'm not showing off or pretending something. I'm not being of service and feeling worthy to be of service and sharing my gift in the world. The way I do it now is it doesn't matter who I speak to, it doesn't matter what I do. I'm not working. I'm being I'm not doing, I'm being. And this way of being is actually is the definition for me of what PS activation is. PS activation has the word activation in it, because when people encounter me, they're activated, they're activated in good and bad, because some people are just triggered by what I see and given what I do and, and it's okay. You know, I was in another pocket with an Israeli Jewish woman that was really triggered by what I was saying and how I was stating my Palestinian hood. And I said, like, even being Palestinian is triggering right now, you know, just like by the state of saying I am Palestinian is triggering, yet I'm not attached to this. This is not my only identity. I'm Palestinian and I'm many tens of other things at the same time. It doesn't matter. One identity doesn't define who I am. I'm human beyond anything. I'm human with a heart that is able to allow Grace to embrace it and able to share it with the world. So for me, being of service is not doing something specific is a way of being that I share with others.

I love that. And how did your relationship with yourself change after this experience? I mean, it sounds like you've made really clear how it changed the way you show up in the world, but how did the relationship with yourself change because you spoke of so much judgment and anger and shame, and I'm wondering what changed, if anything?

Oh, it definitely changed her love affair between me, myself, I, I would say the main thing is compassionate self forgiveness. So what I thought I was I was reaching for the Middle East, The weapon of compassion and self-forgiveness I took that upon myself is really understanding that I need to drop the judgment I have on me, on myself, on my situation and my circumstances that would allow me not to judge the situation or others, you know, and and I, I love to say now that I'm so indulgent with myself, very loving, very caring. I mother myself the way I wanted to be parented and the way I was resentful to my partner for not parenting me or loving me the way I want him to love me or the way I want my kids to show up for me or the way I want my friends to show up for me. Like, just like Spirit meets me at the point of action. I meet me at the point of heart like I have to have. If I have a heart for and love for someone else's suffering, how can I? How can they not apply that for me? It's one of the exercises I do is really being putting myself in my own heart.

And that's so important because so many of us don't realize that we can exercise compassion and love towards others if we're not exercising it with ourselves. And that's a journey. It's not something that happens from one day to another. It's a choice. It's a commitment. It's a it requires self-knowledge because to know how you want to mother yourself and be there for yourself, you have to know yourself first. Thank you. Thank you for sharing your that.

I would say it requires self-knowledge, which is the masculine part and it requires self acceptance, which is the feminine part. And because knowledge without acceptance is useless and acceptance without knowledge is also useless. So we need both. We need the knowledge about our self, but we also need to accept our self. And then you envelop all of this with love and grace.

I love that you're talking about that integration, the reclaiming the feminine and healing the wounded masculine right. And bringing them together. And I was thinking how powerful that image of you taking off the Band-Aids from your eyes and Fabrice holding you and asking, you know, asking you leave your old identity of not seeing. Let your new identity of seeing in and just being that space holder where you could be born again like that. That is such a beautiful image. How the masculine energy can support the female energy to rise again and to be important ever. Thank you so much for everything that you've shared with us. Where can people find you and find Peace activation if they're interested in learning more about the work that you're doing with the Palestine and Israel situation right now, which so many people are wondering how they can get involved, how they can help, what they can do. What would you suggest?

Go to my website, PS activation dot org and we hold weekly call where we hold safe space for Palestinian and Israeli to express their feeling and also international. Any person that is triggered I know affected by the conflict, everybody has a space to express their feeling and to allow the emotion, the energy, emotion to move. So we're doing that. And we also hold peace activation training for people to activate peace inside of them as individuals and also to apply it in their own community. We also have different workshop in a piece to world peace. I mean, everything is on the website and that would be best place to find me.

Before we go, how do you keep strong, given everything that is happening in the Middle East right now? How do you how do you manage? I mean, I know that's a big question, but you have family there. You're so personally affected and impacted by what is happening. And I know a lot of people are around the world and I'm just wondering how you manage not not just to keep it together, but to be of service to others with everything that's going on.

I, I don't keep it together. That's the first answer. I let my heart break every day. My heart breaks every day. I cry a lot and I'm present with my emotions. I like I walk my talk. So I'm really very present with my emotion, with the way I feel. And the feeling are not permanent. They keep changing. Some moment I have joy, some moment I have sadness and some moment I have anger for the injustice. And also, I mean, part of the reason why I'm in Europe was that I just held my first peace activation retreat where we held space for Palestinian and Israeli and Jewish from the diaspora and from the diaspora, and just being together and having moments of sadness, deep depression, cry and joy. We had like understanding that it's really moving the emotion in our body. And we had yoga and meditation and understanding what is genius. Leadership is and how can we how can we enact activate peace inside of us for inner liberation, but also collective liberation? I think right now it's not about just like freeing Gaza, it's actually about freeing Palestine and the whole world. We are all under occupation and we just don't realize it. And that I think that's why what's happening right now in Gaza and in Palestine is taking such a momentum is that it's time for humanity as a whole to raise its consciousness beyond the righteousness. I feel like collective liberation is the new agenda. It's not individual. Well, it's not it's collective. It's not one country, it's the whole countries. And we we need to do it together. We're not able to do it as individuals or, as one organization. We need to free ourself from our internal occupier so that we are able to really have our power and agency back

room.

That's powerful. And I couldn't agree more. There's no way we can go out and do the work that needs to be done if we don't confront our own shadows first and do that inner work that is required and that needs to be activated. So thank you so much for for modeling that. And the last question we ask everyone, as you know, is if you could paint a picture, if you could draw what the harrowing journey is for you, what it has meant and what would it have, what elements, symbols would it have? Would it what would it look like?

Would look like a big heart and me within the heart

and the symbol of Athena, the goddess Athena of the old and the heart know, seeing in the dark

and having the wisdom.

Of the heart.

This conversation with Ara was made possible thanks to the support of committee soundly a Costa Rican based organization and the empathy movement dedicated to teaching nonviolent communication to individuals and companies that want to take their communication and empathy skills to the next level. Learn more at Community sound dot org. That's c. O. N. V. E. R. S. A. B. L. E. Dot Borg. Or follow them on social media as conversation underscores c are

good.

This episode has original from my favorite musician, singer songwriter Nick Wolfie. If you enjoy these conversations, follow us at the Heroines Project on social media and at Christine Rain Dawgs podcast, where you can sign up for our newsletter and be the first to know about new episodes and access resources to accompany you.

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