Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2: I'm tiff. This is Roll with the punches and we're
Speaker 2: turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
Speaker 2: to court, and don't. My friends at test Art Family
Speaker 2: Lawyers know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Speaker 2: Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
Speaker 2: all areas of family law to facto and same sex couples,
Speaker 2: custody and children, family violence and intervention orders, property settlements
Speaker 2: and financial agreements. Test Art is in your corner, so
Speaker 2: reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
Speaker 2: test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au.
Speaker 3: Dem it Gowie. Welcome to Roll with the Punches. Hey, Tifany,
Speaker 3: I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've just connected with an other soul
Speaker 2: sister across the globe.
Speaker 3: Thank you. I feel the same, And yes, you're we are.
Speaker 3: We are on two other sides of this world.
Speaker 2: Isn't weird but kind of cool? Like I still can't
Speaker 2: get like, what what is the day and time where.
Speaker 3: You are right now? It's eight thirty five pm. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a little a little minor detail. Yes, eight thirty
Speaker 3: five pm. Yeah, lunch time.
Speaker 2: It's lunchtime on day? Is it's Tuesday? Is it Tuesday? There? Wow?
Speaker 3: I forgot what day it does. No, it's Monday anywhere
Speaker 3: day eight thirty five pm on a Monday. Yeah, you
Speaker 3: are in my future.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It blows my mind. And every time, like, I
Speaker 2: feel like my listeners will be like, are you if
Speaker 2: I like, come on, it's been years now, you're still
Speaker 2: having this conversation about the time difference. But I'm like,
Speaker 2: if it's my birthday now, which is not part of way,
Speaker 2: but if it was like, it's not my it's my
Speaker 2: birthday here, but it's not my birthday there yet, it's
Speaker 2: so funny to me.
Speaker 3: It is. Well, I love it during New Year's Eve
Speaker 3: when you're able to see New Year's Eve shifting across
Speaker 3: the globe and their celebration every hour, it's I love it.
Speaker 2: You could literally just jump on a plane and follow
Speaker 2: your birthday around. Good idea.
Speaker 3: Past.
Speaker 2: Can you give my listeners and myself the little I
Speaker 2: guess elevator beach if we want to call it that
Speaker 2: elevator pitch of who is Dama GOWI?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'll summarize it with one phrase. I am
Speaker 3: Middle Eastern in my jeans and a global citizen in
Speaker 3: my spirit. So I was born in the Turkey, raised
Speaker 3: in Jordan. I moved to the US when I was twenty,
Speaker 3: and my world opened up for me with education and work.
Speaker 3: And I realized the more I connect with people just
Speaker 3: like yourself from all around the world, there's no boundaries
Speaker 3: or borders when we talk about us at a spiritual side,
Speaker 3: we're all global citizens, and I believe I am one
Speaker 3: of those global citizens.
Speaker 2: Did you I love that? I love that so much.
Speaker 2: Did you feel like you went to seek that. Did
Speaker 2: you expect to feel like that? Did you have a
Speaker 2: Middle Easting connection that we strongly took a bit of
Speaker 2: moving or how did that all unfold?
Speaker 3: Wow, that's such a good question. I never thought about
Speaker 3: how it unfolded. I feel that I did not fit
Speaker 3: in in any country I lived in and traveled to,
Speaker 3: and I lived in so many different countries. I didn't
Speaker 3: fit in the Middle East, I didn't fit in the US.
Speaker 3: I was always in the middle And when I started
Speaker 3: thinking about myself, I don't fit in because I believe
Speaker 3: my spirit is so much bigger than just be limited
Speaker 3: to borders of a country. That's when I felt, what
Speaker 3: for the first time, here I am. I fit in
Speaker 3: in the globe. I may not fit in in a
Speaker 3: specific geography. So that's how it started.
Speaker 2: I love that I just wrote down. I don't even
Speaker 2: know why. Maybe I'll ponder it later, but I just
Speaker 2: wrote down the sentence. Is there an end to fit?
Speaker 2: I was talking yesterday this week to Bill van Hippo
Speaker 2: and about evolution, and we were talking about that human
Speaker 2: drive to belong but also to paradoxically stand out, like
Speaker 2: we want to be special, but we also want to
Speaker 2: fit in, and it's such a paradox.
Speaker 3: He yes, it is. You know, it's nice to belong.
Speaker 3: I would love to feel that I belong to a
Speaker 3: specific group or community, but that also comes with the
Speaker 3: sense of conformity and also losing part of ourselves in
Speaker 3: order to fit in. So it is as society and
Speaker 3: as individuals, as a matter of finding the balance of
Speaker 3: how can we keep our individuals side and appreciate being
Speaker 3: a misfit, but at the same time discovering our value
Speaker 3: by being part of the bigger picture, bigger community. So
Speaker 3: in my situation, I felt as I was growing up
Speaker 3: in the Middle East, I was losing who I am,
Speaker 3: even though I was so young, because I had to
Speaker 3: fit in with what was the expectations and to follow
Speaker 3: and to obey, and because that was what was expected
Speaker 3: of me. And since I was growing up, I didn't
Speaker 3: have an identity. I didn't have a sense of self.
Speaker 3: I was part of the family. Any behavior I did
Speaker 3: reflected on the family. If I did well in school,
Speaker 3: great for the family. If I did a mistake for
Speaker 3: the family. So it was absolutely terrible because I never
Speaker 3: made a choice for me as dema, as an individual.
Speaker 3: It was always the fear and the worry about how
Speaker 3: it is going to be perceived by others. And when
Speaker 3: I came to the US, I sense the same thing
Speaker 3: as well. Where it is let's say, in a corporate environment,
Speaker 3: I am part of the bigger picture. Everything I did
Speaker 3: reflected on the bigger picture, so bigger like the culture
Speaker 3: work culture. So that's why I feel I am a misfit.
Speaker 3: I don't fit anywhere. I love it. It gave me
Speaker 3: the chance to discover my advantage. It gave me the
Speaker 3: chance to be able to discover who I am and
Speaker 3: not to try to conform just to be accepted by
Speaker 3: others and yes, there are consequences, but I'm okay with them.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love this conversation already. You talk about about
Speaker 2: breaking visis, Can you tell us?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 3: So I was five years old in my grandmother's home
Speaker 3: in Amman, the capital of Jordan in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: And she was such a fun grandmother. Always she had
Speaker 3: all kinds of games for me. But that specific day
Speaker 3: she was not fun. She was serious. And we were
Speaker 3: arranging flowers in a glass vase. She held a glass
Speaker 3: vase and looked at me in a very serious way,
Speaker 3: and she said, do you see this perfect glass vase?
Speaker 3: A girl is just like it. If it gets cracked
Speaker 3: for any reason, you can never fix it. You can
Speaker 3: never glue it back. It will always be seen as broken.
Speaker 3: And then she said, and who would want a broken vase?
Speaker 3: That's the one we throw in the trash. So I
Speaker 3: was five years old. I didn't understand what that meant.
Speaker 3: I didn't understand why my grandmother was so serious, and
Speaker 3: what is the meaning of a crack on the vase?
Speaker 3: And why why is she even telling me the story?
Speaker 3: But she was preparing me. She was preparing me to
Speaker 3: the expectations of the society that I have to be perfect.
Speaker 3: I have to worry about how I am being perceived
Speaker 3: by others. I have to do what I'm being told.
Speaker 3: Otherwise I would be thrown away and I would not
Speaker 3: be good enough. And that turned out to be my life.
Speaker 2: Did you carry that story with you or did you
Speaker 2: return back to it at some point, because that something
Speaker 2: that you that we stayed in your mind from that point.
Speaker 3: So that's so interesting because I don't remember. So I
Speaker 3: did not remember the exact story, but in my subconscious
Speaker 3: mind it was the messages were there. Isn't it interesting,
Speaker 3: Like we're told a story. I may not remember the
Speaker 3: words of the story or the specific image the metaphors
Speaker 3: she gave me. But I did end up living my
Speaker 3: life following, obeying, doing everything that I was told. I
Speaker 3: got married very young, when I was twenty, to a
Speaker 3: much older man, and then we moved together to San Diego.
Speaker 3: This is how I moved that to the US. And
Speaker 3: I was absolutely following the expectations of the vase. I
Speaker 3: was doing what was expected of me, how I was
Speaker 3: raised and what I was taught. But then that marriage
Speaker 3: turned out to be abusive, and I was so scared
Speaker 3: to leave. I was scared to even consider it, because
Speaker 3: even when I called my mom in Jordan and I
Speaker 3: told her, I'm not happy, like I'm so depressed. Imagine,
Speaker 3: I was early twenties, alone in the US, extremely depressed,
Speaker 3: not having an identity. But so when I told my mom,
Speaker 3: she said, oh, like, just have have kids, have kids,
Speaker 3: and then and then everything is going to be okay.
Speaker 3: Isn't that hilarious? Yeah? Like, is it bad marriage? Bring
Speaker 3: more kids to it. So so that was the moment
Speaker 3: where I started to question everything, to question the stories
Speaker 3: I was taught. And that's when I started remembering the metaphor.
Speaker 3: So even though I was living with it, the image
Speaker 3: of the vase started coming back to me. And I
Speaker 3: remember one day I was so depressed I couldn't even
Speaker 3: get out of bed. I was staring at the ceiling
Speaker 3: for hours and hours because I was feeling so hopeless.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to I wanted somebody to tell me
Speaker 3: what to do with my life. So I called my
Speaker 3: mom in Jordan. It was the middle of the week,
Speaker 3: and part of the marriage, I was not allowed to
Speaker 3: call my mom in the middle of the week. I
Speaker 3: was only allowed to call her fifteen minutes a week
Speaker 3: on a Saturday, and he had to be next to me,
Speaker 3: so I couldn't just talk to my mom. But that
Speaker 3: day I broke the rules. I bought a I had
Speaker 3: with me a phone card at that time, I used
Speaker 3: to buy them, and I called my mom and I
Speaker 3: couldn't get her, Like the phone just kept drinking, ringing, ringing.
Speaker 3: I couldn't get to my mom. So I called. I
Speaker 3: dial to speak to my best friend and I couldn't
Speaker 3: get her. I dial to speak to my uncle. I
Speaker 3: couldn't get him. And I was at the lowest point
Speaker 3: in my life, just hoping that somebody would tell me
Speaker 3: what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed
Speaker 3: to live my life? At that time, I was twenty
Speaker 3: four and at that moment, I even though I was
Speaker 3: feeling so terrible, I was on the floor crying. But
Speaker 3: I believe now it was the best thing ever, because
Speaker 3: that was the moment that made me realize that I
Speaker 3: have a choice. I can choose to continue to live
Speaker 3: to satisfy everybody around me and keep losing myself. And
Speaker 3: the worst part is to move the vase story and
Speaker 3: these other stories forward to the next generation and expect
Speaker 3: the same thing from them. Can you imagine how horrible
Speaker 3: that would be, or my other choice is to choose me,
Speaker 3: And just the idea that I have a choice, just
Speaker 3: the concept that was like a brand new concept in
Speaker 3: my life. That's when, as if a little crack in
Speaker 3: the vase was created, because that was like a whole
Speaker 3: new thing. I wasn't ready to leave or any of that,
Speaker 3: but just the idea was so empowering, and that's when
Speaker 3: I realized that I need to focus on my education.
Speaker 3: I need to be able to make money and be
Speaker 3: financially independent. There's a phrase in Arabic that says when
Speaker 3: jehan ud lam, and that means knowledge is light and
Speaker 3: ignorance is darkness. So imagine I was raised in a
Speaker 3: way in the darkness. The more I was kept ignorant,
Speaker 3: the more I was kept with fear and insecurities and
Speaker 3: worry about perfection, the more I was being controlled. But
Speaker 3: I needed knowledge and that was my only condition when
Speaker 3: we got married. So that's like from the beginning, since
Speaker 3: I met him, I said I wanted to be the
Speaker 3: first educated woman in my family, and he agreed, and
Speaker 3: thank goodness he agreed, because of course he has full
Speaker 3: power over my life. But he agreed and by getting
Speaker 3: the education and graduating and getting my diploma, that also
Speaker 3: created another crack in the vase because now I have
Speaker 3: my education, and knowledge is power, knowledge is light. And
Speaker 3: then around that time, his business wasn't doing well and
Speaker 3: usually he would not let me work because like again
Speaker 3: the control, but he needed help. He needed help financially
Speaker 3: and even with simple little things of paying utility bills,
Speaker 3: and he allowed me to work and it was such
Speaker 3: a blessing. So even though he was self serving his need,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, it reflected positively on me
Speaker 3: because it was I was able to find a job.
Speaker 3: I was working minimum wage as a teller, just ten
Speaker 3: hours a week, but that gave me some financial ability
Speaker 3: where I was making money. And then years later I
Speaker 3: got a better job, I started making more money, and
Speaker 3: that created another crack in the vase. So when we
Speaker 3: talk about my life and this vase, once I discovered
Speaker 3: that I have a choice, and by the way, I
Speaker 3: love on your website because you talk about the choice too,
Speaker 3: and I wrote it down. You have a choice of
Speaker 3: fighting or fleeing. And I fought, but I didn't fight
Speaker 3: by fighting physically or verbally. I fought by connecting internally
Speaker 3: getting my education, becoming financially independent, and then I escaped.
Speaker 3: By escaping that was not accepted by my family. That
Speaker 3: entire community in Jordan disowned me, and my father DI
Speaker 3: decided to have me killed because if a woman and
Speaker 3: it's still happening.
Speaker 2: WHOA Okay, but that's so horrible. Yeah, oh wow, okay.
Speaker 2: I was about to ask, that was so left field
Speaker 2: for me. I was about to ask, do you feel
Speaker 2: like at this at this point of I guess just
Speaker 2: before making these choices, you, when you look back, do
Speaker 2: you think that you were your your actions were derived
Speaker 2: from possibilities that you were aware of or could could
Speaker 2: see your dream up, or the pain of where you were,
Speaker 2: what you were in and that you just didn't want
Speaker 2: to be there, or an amalgamation of both.
Speaker 3: It was both. It was the pain of where I was,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't just the abuse of relationship. It was
Speaker 3: the depression that I was experiencing. So I was in
Speaker 3: such deep depression and every time I would think about
Speaker 3: the future, I would see total darkness. I would not
Speaker 3: have a hope that things are going to get better.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, whenever I looked at people
Speaker 3: around me, I would see that they had dreams and
Speaker 3: they were working towards them, and I would say to myself,
Speaker 3: I wish I can do that too. They were working
Speaker 3: hard to get promotion, and I knew that eventually I
Speaker 3: would not be allowed to work. They had dreams, maybe
Speaker 3: to work on their masters or to start a business,
Speaker 3: and I knew I would not be allowed to do that.
Speaker 3: So even though I had glimpses of things that I
Speaker 3: would hope I could do, I knew I wasn't allowed
Speaker 3: to in the future. So I had to block it.
Speaker 3: And that increased the depression that I was experiencing. So
Speaker 3: it's like a horrible cycle that was going on.
Speaker 2: What did you what were you studying?
Speaker 3: What did you choose the economics?
Speaker 2: So in the middle of that, you're experiencing depression, you're
Speaker 2: experiencing conditioning, cultural conditioning, and expectations and beliefs and biases
Speaker 2: and huge limitations, and you're experiencing shitty circumstances. How does
Speaker 2: one because I'm thinking of people listening, I'm thinking thinking
Speaker 2: of people who are wanting to do better or change
Speaker 2: or strive or be empowered. How in the middle of
Speaker 2: what could have only have been a pretty funky situation.
Speaker 2: Funky as in not great, funky as in crap? What
Speaker 2: did it take to in that state? Strive and get
Speaker 2: out of there and actually reach for possibility and make change.
Speaker 3: Wow. The first thing that helped me was to question
Speaker 3: the norm, because these stories were told early on, and
Speaker 3: they're so ingrained in our lives and in our head
Speaker 3: and many times we start doubting ourselves, thinking maybe there's
Speaker 3: something wrong with me. Why can't I be quiet like
Speaker 3: everybody else? Why can't I just be like everybody else?
Speaker 3: So the first thing I would tell everybody to start questioning,
Speaker 3: questioning the norm, questioning why you're doing certain things, even
Speaker 3: questioning the depression. The depression was an amazing teacher because
Speaker 3: it was teaching me that I did not fit in
Speaker 3: in that environment and I deserve something better. Of course,
Speaker 3: at that time, I cannot say yay, I'm depressed. It
Speaker 3: was terrible. It was horrible. But now when I look back,
Speaker 3: I don't think I would have done what I ended
Speaker 3: up doing, which is escape, if I did not have
Speaker 3: that depression. So questioning the norm and then also start
Speaker 3: start analyzing, what are the phases in your life? What
Speaker 3: are the stories that you've been told that have shaped
Speaker 3: you and shaped your decisions or maybe shaped your choices,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, think about the goals of
Speaker 3: the future. In my situation, what I wanted part of
Speaker 3: the goal was that I wanted to work on my
Speaker 3: master's and I wasn't allowed to do that. So all
Speaker 3: I started doing was envisioning myself with a cap and
Speaker 3: gown and I was walking to get my like my
Speaker 3: diploma for my masters, so that every time things got
Speaker 3: so bad, I would keep imagining that day. So imagine
Speaker 3: what the vase is, Imagine the dream of what you're
Speaker 3: trying to achieve, and start listening to the voice and
Speaker 3: our heads. Because most of the time we're not telling
Speaker 3: ourselves good things. So maybe what's wrong with me? I
Speaker 3: am not good enough, I'm going to fail, I'm going
Speaker 3: to regret this decision. All of these voices were in
Speaker 3: my head constantly, so it's a matter maybe write them down.
Speaker 3: Write down all these negative things that we tell ourselves,
Speaker 3: and then on a second column, write down what do
Speaker 3: you want to start telling yourself. Recently, I hired a
Speaker 3: coach and she's been helping me with this because this
Speaker 3: is something that I'm still dealing with until today that
Speaker 3: when the shame and the negative programming start in our
Speaker 3: life early on, even though we become in our forties, fifties, sixties,
Speaker 3: it's still playing in our head and it's still continue
Speaker 3: to make us small and push us down. So these
Speaker 3: are some of the things that I did. But in
Speaker 3: my situation, it wasn't just that I sat down and
Speaker 3: I said, Okay, what is my base, what are my thoughts,
Speaker 3: what is my vision? I just needed to get out
Speaker 3: because I just I knew I would not be able
Speaker 3: to survive in that environment anymore. And it's just sometimes
Speaker 3: when we make big decisions like this, the universe starts
Speaker 3: lining up for us. In my situation, I started meeting
Speaker 3: people that were helping me, my team and my team members.
Speaker 3: They discovered about what was going on and they started
Speaker 3: totally supporting me. So it's amazing how the community comes
Speaker 3: to us when we are in such a law and
Speaker 3: law place. But that's the time where we need to
Speaker 3: accept the help, which was so difficult for me to
Speaker 3: open ourselves and put our ego aside and be okay
Speaker 3: to accept as much help as we can.
Speaker 2: How did you cope with the transition of I think
Speaker 2: one of the hardest things when we choose change is
Speaker 2: the ecosystem around us created us that we are, and
Speaker 2: so we've chosen and been around certain types of people
Speaker 2: might be family, friends, work, colleagues, and we conform to that,
Speaker 2: and then we choose change in One of the biggest
Speaker 2: forms of pushback can be people not liking the change
Speaker 2: they see, and then sometimes the discomfort of either difficult
Speaker 2: conversations or breaking ties, or realizing that even walking away
Speaker 2: from non helpful situations or sometimes even toxic situations can
Speaker 2: still hurt or feel scary to us. How did you
Speaker 2: cope through those types of situations?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that is part of the consequences. That's why
Speaker 3: most of us we don't take the right choice that
Speaker 3: serves us because we're afraid of people looking down at
Speaker 3: us or gossiping about us. In my situation, my entire
Speaker 3: community disowned me in Jordan. So it was very painful
Speaker 3: because initially like, these are people that I loved, these
Speaker 3: are family members that I respected, these are my friends,
Speaker 3: and to them I was not good enough. And it
Speaker 3: was extremely painful because to me it wasn't as at
Speaker 3: that time I was twenty five by the time I escaped,
Speaker 3: it was twenty five. It wasn't in a place where
Speaker 3: I would tell myself I made the right decision and
Speaker 3: they're wrong. I started blaming myself and thinking why did
Speaker 3: I do that? And I started getting all kinds of
Speaker 3: sense of shame and regret, initially because who would want
Speaker 3: to be thrown away like that? So yeah, so to
Speaker 3: me it was I guess my community made it easy,
Speaker 3: and they're all like, we're done, we don't want to
Speaker 3: deal with you. But for anybody that is listening to
Speaker 3: this and they're worried about the people's reaction, my advice
Speaker 3: to you is put yourself first. Listen to your intuition.
Speaker 3: If you're having a sense that you're not in the
Speaker 3: right place, if you are having a sense that you're
Speaker 3: not surrounded with the right people that are uplifting you,
Speaker 3: that believe in you, then why should we even worry
Speaker 3: about what they think? Right?
Speaker 2: If I got to ask you at t who is
Speaker 2: Dema at twenty? Yeah, at twenty years old? If you
Speaker 2: or if Dema asked herself at twenty who am I?
Speaker 2: What would that answer look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I was a bride. I felt like Cinderella.
Speaker 3: I was getting married to the most eligible bachelor in
Speaker 3: our community who had tons of money, and we had
Speaker 3: this amazing wedding. At that time. Dima was the bride
Speaker 3: and then the wife of this person. Dima was the
Speaker 3: daughter of my father. Dima was the sister and sister
Speaker 3: for my siblings. But Dema was nobody as an individual.
Speaker 3: I was something for other people. I was defined by
Speaker 3: the family name. I was defined by my husband. I
Speaker 3: was defined by my father. That's why I was.
Speaker 2: And if I asked you today, who is.
Speaker 3: So Diva is a very happy person today I am.
Speaker 3: I am living my purpose and it continues to evolve.
Speaker 3: I believe I am here on this earth to make
Speaker 3: a difference in people's lives. I believe that my story
Speaker 3: and all the terrible things that I experienced in my
Speaker 3: childhood and also in my marriage, they have a purpose.
Speaker 3: They have a purpose so I can influence people from
Speaker 3: all around the world, give them a sense of hope,
Speaker 3: and also give them the empowerment to realize that they
Speaker 3: have the ability to shatter the vase and it's okay.
Speaker 3: So that's who I am today and I absolutely love it.
Speaker 2: And in a transition period between twenty year old Dema
Speaker 2: and escap escaping that identity and sense of self. I
Speaker 2: am imagining there was a stage of well, if I'm
Speaker 2: not the wife, the bride, the child of the daughter,
Speaker 2: if I'm not those things, who am I? What did
Speaker 2: that look feel like? And how did you then go
Speaker 2: from there to developing a new sense of self?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so what happened was after I escaped. The story
Speaker 3: gets more complicated because the abuse extended to my mom
Speaker 3: and my sister and they had to escape from Jordan
Speaker 3: and they had to come and live with me in
Speaker 3: San Diego. So I imagine I was twenty five responsible
Speaker 3: for myself, for my mom and my sister, and dealing
Speaker 3: with all of the mess related to the emotions and
Speaker 3: depression of everybody, and being able to pay the bills,
Speaker 3: which was like I can't even believe how we did that.
Speaker 3: My uncle, I have a wonderful uncle in the US,
Speaker 3: and he helped us. I think he was one of
Speaker 3: very few people. My uncle in the US my aunt
Speaker 3: in Canada were the only two that helped us, and
Speaker 3: they would even send money to support us. So the
Speaker 3: reason I'm sharing this there was so much stuff that
Speaker 3: was going on I could not handle it. So I
Speaker 3: blocked all my emotions, my anger, my frustration, all of this,
Speaker 3: and I called that I blocked it all in a big,
Speaker 3: invisible black box because I needed to survive. I needed
Speaker 3: so I started working so hard. I was working day
Speaker 3: and night so I would be able to pay the bills.
Speaker 3: We were living in a one bedroom apartment in a
Speaker 3: very unsafe area, and for like initially, we didn't even
Speaker 3: have furniture until my manager discovered and she gave us
Speaker 3: a love seat that her dead dog used to love
Speaker 3: to sit on, and so it had all the dead
Speaker 3: dog hair. So we had to keep cleaning and a
Speaker 3: little TV. That's all we had. And we lived like
Speaker 3: this because we couldn't afford any of that. So I
Speaker 3: was working, work and working, and I called it ambitious,
Speaker 3: like I am so ambitious, I'm going to work. Really,
Speaker 3: what I was doing is I was escaping from the
Speaker 3: because I knew I could not handle them. So many
Speaker 3: years later, so let me count seven years later, I
Speaker 3: got very sick and I had fever for ten days
Speaker 3: straight and ended in the hospital. And even though it
Speaker 3: sounds terrible, I believe it was the best thing ever
Speaker 3: because I was forced to stop like stop. I wasn't
Speaker 3: able to work and to just keep myself occupied and
Speaker 3: frame it as a positive thing. I was on a
Speaker 3: short term disability for a month and a half and
Speaker 3: I was laying on the couch unable to move because
Speaker 3: the fever attacked my liver, like whatever was going on
Speaker 3: attacked my liver. And I am so grateful that that happened,
Speaker 3: because that's when I started reflecting about the emotions that
Speaker 3: I was hiding. And I started reflecting related to this
Speaker 3: anger and the fear of survival, and the regret and
Speaker 3: the shame because I was still living with all of that.
Speaker 3: And that's when I decided that I need to start
Speaker 3: seeking healers and asking for help and asking for some
Speaker 3: experts to help me this identify these terrible emotions and
Speaker 3: get them out of me. There's a book called Buried
Speaker 3: Emotions Never Die, and that's what happened to me. I
Speaker 3: was trying to bury all of these emotions, and even
Speaker 3: though I thought they were all buried, what once in
Speaker 3: a while this little or big, big, black, invisible box
Speaker 3: which it would open up and all these horrible emotions
Speaker 3: would come out. So I was forced for the first
Speaker 3: time to go through deep healing. And I went through
Speaker 3: this healing for ten years, and sometimes I would have
Speaker 3: like two or three sessions a week. One of those
Speaker 3: sessions it was three hours to just help me look
Speaker 3: at my father's picture. I could not look at his picture,
Speaker 3: so we took three hours for me to just be
Speaker 3: able to look at his picture. So after ten years,
Speaker 3: I felt I was in a good place, but there's
Speaker 3: always things that come up. So because I did all
Speaker 3: of the healing and the forgiveness, that was the hardest thing.
Speaker 3: Not just forgiving my dad and forgiving my ex husband
Speaker 3: and the community. The hardest part was forgiving myself because
Speaker 3: many times we're blaming ourselves, like I was blaming myself
Speaker 3: about what was happening and the divide that happened in
Speaker 3: like in my own family, what happened to my mom,
Speaker 3: what happened to my sister. So I had to forgive
Speaker 3: myself and that was really difficult. But then I was
Speaker 3: because I was able to release all of these things,
Speaker 3: I started feeling lighter, I started feeling happier. I started
Speaker 3: getting promoted for some reason. It was strange because I
Speaker 3: became more confident. I wasn't doing work because I was escaping.
Speaker 3: I was doing my work because I was passionate about
Speaker 3: what I was doing. I was able to speak up
Speaker 3: in meetings instead of instead of hiding myself all the time.
Speaker 3: So that's what happened, and the journey never ended. So
Speaker 3: I wrote the book my breaking basis, and because I
Speaker 3: went through ten years of healing, I was in a
Speaker 3: better place to write it. But it was still difficult.
Speaker 3: I was I Sometimes I would write for half an
Speaker 3: hour and then I would need three hours of sleep.
Speaker 3: And what was even harder was audible because I recorded
Speaker 3: the whole story, and that was that was intense because
Speaker 3: I was hearing my story and I had to deal
Speaker 3: with all the emotions. So it never ends, and I'm
Speaker 3: still going through therapy and healing and all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 3: But it's okay. And anybody who looks at these things
Speaker 3: and say I don't need healing, I believe we all
Speaker 3: need it. It's not easy being human in our world.
Speaker 3: We all had something that happened in our childhood. We
Speaker 3: all had something, if not childhood, something that happened when
Speaker 3: we're a teenage that keeps making us think that there's
Speaker 3: something wrong with us. And trust me, there's nothing wrong
Speaker 3: with us. We just need to clean it up.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love it so much when you in the
Speaker 2: writing of your story, like what was the experience like
Speaker 2: one writing it down and two I guess reading over that,
Speaker 2: but then three speaking it out loud for audible and
Speaker 2: then maybe listening back with their versions of feeling like oh,
Speaker 2: listen to that, like getting separation and perspective on your
Speaker 2: own story, like what sort of what was the emotional
Speaker 2: process of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Wow. So as I was writing it, as I mentioned,
Speaker 3: a lot of things would come up and they would
Speaker 3: not be positive. A big part of the messages that
Speaker 3: kept coming up for me is, for some strange reason,
Speaker 3: I was scared that people would not like me when
Speaker 3: they read the story, or they think that I made
Speaker 3: a wrong decision, or all these fears that I had.
Speaker 3: I was internally. I started projecting it on the reader
Speaker 3: before there was even a reader, and I was worried
Speaker 3: about how they're going to perceive me. And I hired
Speaker 3: many editors and creative like creative coaches and all kinds
Speaker 3: of people that helped me with this book. So even
Speaker 3: though it's just like you look at it at it
Speaker 3: as a book, it did take a village. So many
Speaker 3: people were involved in it, and I would keep asking them,
Speaker 3: I would say, like, I don't know if the reader
Speaker 3: would even care about the story. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I would if I would come across as like as
Speaker 3: the bad person, the bad character, And the messages kept
Speaker 3: coming up, dema, the reader is going to love you,
Speaker 3: which I'm so grateful for. I like to be loved.
Speaker 3: But at this at the same time, anytime I would
Speaker 3: ask would anyone care about the story, the messages that
Speaker 3: I kept the receiving was yes. Because we all have
Speaker 3: a vase, we all have something that is stopping us.
Speaker 3: We are we are all dealing with the sense that
Speaker 3: we have to be perfect, or the fear of shame.
Speaker 3: And so when I realized that there's a purpose behind
Speaker 3: the story, that's when I totally put my heart and
Speaker 3: soul to get the book out.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about shame a bit, because I like, for me,
Speaker 2: shame has been on long journey and I found it
Speaker 2: a really interesting thing because sometimes it feels like I'm
Speaker 2: the surface. But we could we intellectualize everything, and I
Speaker 2: kind of for myself, I understood the logic of mind
Speaker 2: background and he keeps using the term little black box,
Speaker 2: and that's how I talk about my childhood trauma is
Speaker 2: I was aware of it. It was in a little
Speaker 2: black box for thirty years until it popped out through
Speaker 2: boxing and getting into my body. It was kind of like, oh,
Speaker 2: here's this box, you should open it. And then subsequent
Speaker 2: from that, I mean, it's taken a decade of realizing
Speaker 2: that shame was a thing and it was driving a
Speaker 2: lot of things, and I've worked on it a lot,
Speaker 2: and I had an experience late last year, went to
Speaker 2: the Himalayas on a beautiful retreat with a group. We
Speaker 2: did some deep work there and we were told to
Speaker 2: figure out what we wanted to leave on the mountain.
Speaker 2: So obviously I was like a pack of shame with me,
Speaker 2: and it's coming and I'm leaving it there. And I
Speaker 2: had the most profound experience where I burned shame on
Speaker 2: the mountain and in the moment before burning it, I
Speaker 2: thanked shame for those not knowing what its purpose was,
Speaker 2: believing and trusting and being grateful for it. And I
Speaker 2: was like, obviously, I've carried this for a reason, but
Speaker 2: I no longer need it. And I came back and
Speaker 2: just pondered this idea of I've tried to purge myself
Speaker 2: of this shame for so long, and it feels like
Speaker 2: it doesn't shift, but then it shifts in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: But it's kind of like also it's been shifting the
Speaker 2: whole time. It's like that idea of doing the work
Speaker 2: and thinking it's not working, and then you know, it's
Speaker 2: like becoming an overnight success taking ten years. That was
Speaker 2: a long question, wasn't it was that even a question? Anyway?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm so glad that you got to have that experience,
Speaker 3: and I'm so glad that you're working with your invisible
Speaker 3: black box as well. And the shame, it's like sometimes
Speaker 3: I wonder where did it come from? Are we born
Speaker 3: with these starts about shame or are we being programmed?
Speaker 3: I know in my story, I was programmed because I
Speaker 3: was programmed to respect the elders, to do whatever the
Speaker 3: elders say, and then I was taught if I did
Speaker 3: not do that, there's something wrong with me. I am
Speaker 3: not good enough and I'm going to be thrown away.
Speaker 3: So I believe that's where the seed of the shame
Speaker 3: in my life. And it's so interesting that it stayed
Speaker 3: with me even though I truly did the right thing
Speaker 3: by escaping. How for many many years, I was feeling
Speaker 3: internally shameful. I felt that there's just something wrong with me.
Speaker 3: Why can't I just deal with the situation like everybody else?
Speaker 3: So maybe we need to all reflect and go back
Speaker 3: and figure out where where did where did it originate?
Speaker 3: What is the voice of shame in our head? And
Speaker 3: then that's where we can go back and identify the
Speaker 3: vase that is associated with all of that. But every
Speaker 3: body I interact with, we're all dealing with this shame,
Speaker 3: regardless of what culture we're living in.
Speaker 2: What are your as current aspirations? What's next? What's current?
Speaker 2: What are you aspiring to and working on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so there's multiple things I'm working on. One of
Speaker 3: them is the second book. So book number one was
Speaker 3: Breaking Vases, which is the memoir, the story about everything
Speaker 3: that happened and all the details related to the experience.
Speaker 3: Now the book number two is about the reader, so
Speaker 3: it's less of the story and more tips related to
Speaker 3: identifying the vase. How can we rise from these bad experiences?
Speaker 3: So so far, the title of the book that's in
Speaker 3: my head is rising from the shards. So you have
Speaker 3: the shards of the broken vase, and we can either
Speaker 3: keep them broken on the floor and maybe feel like
Speaker 3: a victim or feel that we're broken, or we can
Speaker 3: build something beautiful from them based on how we want
Speaker 3: our life to look like. So that is what the
Speaker 3: book is, and it's going to include a lot of
Speaker 3: messages related to my healing journey and what I had
Speaker 3: to do with that, and also it's going to include
Speaker 3: information about the healthy feminine and how many times we
Speaker 3: lose the healthy feminine and we turn into being a
Speaker 3: toxic feminine just to survive. So that is that's part
Speaker 3: of the book number two, and I have been talking
Speaker 3: to two directors to turning Breaking Vases into a movie.
Speaker 3: So the journey is, it's taking time. It's not as
Speaker 3: fast as I would like it to be. But this
Speaker 3: is a big part because I believe that I want
Speaker 3: this message to be with people all around the world,
Speaker 3: regardless of their culture, regardless of their language. It is
Speaker 3: something that applies to everyone. So this is far. These
Speaker 3: are two of the things I'm working on. I'm working
Speaker 3: also on creating retreats to come and for us to
Speaker 3: come together and support each other as we are shattering
Speaker 3: these vases in our lives, and also doing an online
Speaker 3: leadership program to bring all the leadership messages that start
Speaker 3: with self discovery, start with what are we telling ourselves?
Speaker 3: Why do we think we're not good enough? And build
Speaker 3: ourselves as leaders. So there's just so much stuff going
Speaker 3: on and I love it.
Speaker 2: What does last question, what does toxic femininity look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so let me share how it looked in my life,
Speaker 3: because many times we're talking about healing or we're talking
Speaker 3: about the bad men in our lives. But what we
Speaker 3: don't realize that in order to be in order to survive,
Speaker 3: maybe we need to change from being the healed, balanced
Speaker 3: feminine into maybe lying or manipulating or getting things our way.
Speaker 3: And this is how my mother in law was. So
Speaker 3: my mother in law, externally she looks so perfect. She was,
Speaker 3: she said the right thing, she dressed the right way,
Speaker 3: she bought beautiful gifts for other people. But she had
Speaker 3: to get her way by lying, manipulating, trying to act
Speaker 3: like someone that she's not truly who she was, just
Speaker 3: to be accepted and just to be loved and to
Speaker 3: get things the way she wanted them. So many times
Speaker 3: and I see it all all over where we're being hurt,
Speaker 3: let's say as a child or our feminine side, our beautiful,
Speaker 3: flowing feminine side gets hurt, and what we end up
Speaker 3: doing in order to survive, we start masking who we
Speaker 3: are and we start manipulating to get our way. So
Speaker 3: what we need to do is to heal that part,
Speaker 3: and we all anybody who got hurt in our lives,
Speaker 3: we learn that we cannot be who we are. We
Speaker 3: need to change. We need to play a game in
Speaker 3: order to get things our way, and the game sometimes
Speaker 3: is not pretty, and what we end up doing is
Speaker 3: hurting other people in the process as well, because we're
Speaker 3: losing our beautiful, feminine and we end up doing things
Speaker 3: that are not aligned with our identity and our true self.
Speaker 2: So good. Where can people follow you and find you on?
Speaker 2: Get your books?
Speaker 3: So my website is my name Dmagowi dot com, so
Speaker 3: it's d I m a Ghawi dot com and then
Speaker 3: they can get my book on Amazon. They can also
Speaker 3: get it there's a website called breaking Basis dot com,
Speaker 3: so they're able to get it there as well.
Speaker 2: I've loved this. This has been great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tiffany, I love talking with you.
Speaker 2: Thanks everyone.
Speaker 1: She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 3: Gotta quite a coast, Gotta little, gotta lotta cost, got it.