THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Najwa Zebian - The Writer's Soul

Episode Date: December 5, 2018

Consider this... "These mountains that you are carrying, you were only meant to climb." I know you felt that! And so did I. Which is why I had to interview the powerful and inspiring trailblazer who coined this phrase, Najwa Zebian. Najwa is a celebrated Lebanese-Canadian poet and inspirational speaker on a mission to CHANGE THE WORLD. In this heart-filled interview, Najwa shares her account of witnessing her home in Lebanon engulfed in war, to her incredible journey of immigration, vulnerability, invisibility, and self-discovery. On the heels of the #metoomovement we confront head-on the mindset of power dynamics and the reality AND effects that men and women are faced with on a daily basis. Our backgrounds are different. Our styles are different and this interview will be a brand new experience that you do NOT want to miss. More often than not, it is our diversity that brings us together. This is why I am so thrilled to bring you this episode. This woman has shaped and changed her entire life and is now on a mission to change the world. WATCH/LISTEN NOW! Please SUBSCRIBE to all platforms, by CLICKING THE LINK IN MY BIO. Please SHARE, REVIEW, COMMENT, REPOST, and TAG SOMEONE to spread the word about the fastest growing show on earth!

Welcome to the Ed Milach Show, the place for leaders, dreams and champions. Welcome back to Max Out everybody, I'm Ed Milach and today is going to be an experience that you were going to enjoy so much. I certainly know that I am and the reason for that experience certainly isn't me. It's because of this lady to my left here. She's an incredible woman. And my crew will tell you I've been kind of giddy all morning about this conversation and looking forward to it for so long. She is an incredible poet, speaker, author. But I think she's become one of the great thought leaders

in the world as well. Thank you. That means a lot. It's true. You make me think. So this is Nezua, Zebian, everybody. Nezua, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

We've been texting back and forth. We've both been excited about today. So I can't wait to get into this. By the end of this, everybody, your whole world is going to be just a little bit different. And that's why we do this show. It's for you to experience different people, to be thinking different thoughts. And I have people here that max out their lives.

And your story is so amazing. So let's get into it. Can one help some people? Yes, let's go. Okay, so you're one of those guests that it's impossible to not go back in time, to hear your story in order to give context for how incredible your messages So they have to know a little bit about this so in Nezue you grew up in Lebanon till you're about 16

Right, but sort of away from your parents and that's sort of I think caused some Thinking in you some maybe some insecurities in you tell them a little bit about your upbringing and how it impacted you if you could So I was the only one in my family born and raised in Lebanon. My parents met in Canada, had five children, and then one day my oldest sister came home. My dad asked her a question in Arabic, which is our first language, and she didn't understand. So he thought, I need to take my kids back home. So he went there and eight years later I was born. So you're the youngest by a lot?

Yes, by many years. And the next ones up are actually twins, which means they have each other, right? So I felt that growing up I always looked at adults in my life hoping to walk the same footsteps as them. And anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm sure that a very young age, psychologically, in terms of,

I never liked playing, because I'm like, that's childish, but I would be like eight or nine years old. Seriously? Yeah, yeah. And obviously, there's times when you do it, just because everybody else here ages doing it, but it just, just always seemed to me like it was a waste of time. Interesting, not to interrupt you. But one of the things that strikes me about you is your maturity level even now.

You're 28 years old. You're talking that we do this, but your presence and your maturity level. You wonder something funny. I often get messages saying, I read some of your work, and I was so happy when I searched you to find out that you're alive. But I thought that you would be somebody who died like 70 years ago. I kind of have this old, so young soul thing I believe, and I don't know exactly where I think that comes from,

but you have this old soul spirit about you. You know, you know, wisdom, I think about you, that's beyond your years. But let's keep going back to the younger years. When I turned eight years old about that time, my mom and dad started traveling between Lebanon and Canada to stay with my siblings because as soon as they would hit a certain age, they would come to Canada to study or work or whatever it was. And it was mostly my mom at first, and so I would stay with my dad and my dad used to work a lot and so I spent a lot of time with my grandma or with whoever relative was available to take care of me or you know I'd go to their house after school and it wasn't and I always try to make a point of saying that I don't look at this as my parents badly parenting.

I think they were doing the best that they could do. And they thought that I would experience better things if I'm around other kids, like my aunt's children, or my uncle's kids, or... But the way we experience things is very different from the way that the world intends for us to experience them, right? So I have to honor my own experience. So from the age of 8 to 16, there was no consistent sense of belonging. And obviously at 8 or 10 or 12 or 14 or whatever, I wouldn't know how to put that into words. So what would I think something's wrong with me? Why am I feeling this way? And what confirmed to me that something was wrong with me was I got bullied in school for being the youngest

in my class, for being too sensitive, for always doing the right thing, for watching out for people. And yeah, I genuinely believe something was wrong with me. So you had this dynamic. You're already, I think you're like me a little bit. I think people have, there's nature in nurture, right? And I don't believe anybody's necessarily an introvert or shy,

but you and I are both quiet people. Yes. Sort of introverted by maybe nature to some extent. So you have that combination with mom and dad or in and out of your life at different times, combined with the bullying, nowhere to turn to. I can see how that makes an impact on you. So how would you describe your emotions as a child up to you were 16?

How would you describe you? Were you serious? Were you sad? Were you? I do believe I remember that I had a lot of sadness in me because it stemmed from that what's wrong with me. When there is a void inside of you and again at that age you don't know how to express it but there's a void and I think that that void was for love and attention and someone

to say nothing is wrong with you. And when that's missing again it confirms to you that maybe you don't deserve that, right? And so that's what I fully believed. There was a lot of sadness and there was a lot of aching to feel like I belonged. Yeah. Showing those years. See, the thing about you, I just did this show the other day about vulnerability. And I said, the reason of vulnerability is so important is because it can magnify all

the other great emotions you eventually want. But without taking the risk of being vulnerable, you never really discover these other things. The thing that's so wonderful about you, it's even for me too. I hear parts of my story in your story even though they're completely different. If that makes any sense. When you're vulnerable and you open up to other people, it actually opens up a version of the person you're sharing it with as well, right? And so there's millions of people are listening to this that felt those same things

through different circumstances. They didn't feel loved. They feel like there's something wrong with them. And you carry those things from your childhood all your life until you identify them, right? And so your story then goes down another turn, which is interesting because you, about 16, I believe, you then end up going to Canada.

It was on my 16th birthday. Oh my gosh. I know I had that really disgusting chocolate cake on the plane. On the airplane on your birthday. Yeah. Oh boy. So you already have this combination of sort of not feeling great about yourself. There's this disconnect there, being bullied, and then you end up going to what is now really a foreign country at 16 years old. So what was that like? So about a few weeks after I arrived in Canada, I saw the airport in Lebanon on fire because the war started that summer. So you're not going back? No, so I knew there was no way to go back. I was imagining remembering getting on that plane

and seeing just the airport and planes. And so yeah, so that hit me hard because it felt like this was a moment that I needed to decide whether I wanted to stay or leave. So I decided to stay, but looking back, that really wasn't a decision. It was kind of like I was forced to stay, but to protect myself, I had to convince myself

that it was a decision, right? We often do that. When I first arrived, teachers didn't think I arrived from a different country. So they didn't have in mind, maybe she has, maybe there's a cultural shock, or maybe she doesn't know how school works. They thought I transferred from a different school.

So that made me just completely invisible and oblivious to how things work here. Did you like being invisible though? In other words, did you sort of enjoy the invisibility? I have this sense about you, this picture of you at that age where you didn't have a real problem with being invisible, right? No, I wanted to be invisible. I wanted to be invisible. It was convenient. Even at lunch, I wouldn't go to the cafeteria. I remember not knowing where the cafeteria in my school was until the last, the last like two or three months of the year because I used to go to the library and do my homework or

sit with whoever came and sat there. Yeah, I just never never contributed to any extracurricular activities, never did anything around the school. So there was no, there nobody there would have imagined you'd become you now. No. No. Right? No. Because, no. And I want to help people too, because there's a lot of people listening to this who have become too comfortable with being invisible. You're not supposed to be invisible. And there's millions and millions of people who have just decided they're going to go through

this life invisible. And it takes great courage. It's a great shield, right? To be invisible. It's a great shield. Because there's no, I just watched one of your recent videos where you were talking about perfection. When you say I'm a perfectionist, you're kind of using it like an excuse. I say I won't do it unless it's perfect. It's the same thing with being invisible. You're like,

I don't make a difference to the world anyway. It's just my life. So, right? And you having these thoughts. I think it's so important that people sense this because I'm just picturing all this. There's the added ripple that I'm sure not everybody at your school was Muslim either, right? So there's just a lot of people who feel in life different. Or who am I to think I should be successful or who? And I've even watched a lot of your content. You use that phrase a lot about who am I? And there were people even in your life.

Is who do you think you are? It's not the events of our life that define us. It's the meaning we take from the event. So I'm convinced of that. So we sort of now have this like bio on you. Right? Now we kind of know who you were as a young woman. And I could just picture you.

It's almost like, I don't mean this in any other way. I just wish I could go. There's probably you wish you could go back to that young girl and hug her and say, hey,'s probably, you wish you could go back to that young girl and hug her and say, hey, you wish you could just say something to, I have that version of me too. I wish I could go back to the 16 year old man, and say, hey man, everything's gonna be okay.

You're special, you know? And so I really relate to that part of your story, but there's a situation that took place that sort of started to define, I think, you and what you represent to the world. Can you tell them a little bit about the incident that kind of took place or this scenario, the person that was in your life that sort of gave you

an awakening, they were actually it'd be a great gift to you. So tell them about that. It's actually, it got, it took me quite a while to start seeing that and him as a gift because it's hard to describe pain and someone who caused you so much pain as a gift, but it took me a while, but I'm there, hopefully.

So I'm very happy that we started way before this because it really builds up to help people understand why I experienced my experience the way that I did. So I had started writing when I was 13 to deal with the pain of feeling like I didn't belong. And at 16 when I arrived in Canada, I ripped up that journal and said, I'm never writing again because I did not want

to feel the pain. I was so aware every single time I wrote of the pain inside of me and it killed me that I wasn't able to do anything about it. So I said, I don't want to feel anymore. And for the next seven years of my life, I really, I like, I remember those years in black and white, not feeling anything. Honestly, you're really good.

I actually remember those years in black and white because I, they were so dark. I was, I was invisible during those years and never expressed myself in any way, went to university, then started Teachers College and then I started teaching. It was during Teachers College that I met someone who belonged to my Muslim community, but was also very high in the education field. And I remember seeing him speak at our college and he was just so charismatic and so I felt so proud that our community had someone like him. So that was when I when I first met him and then during teacher's college I got to do a teaching practicum at his school.

And I remember at the time that he gave me a little bit of attention, but I never thought anything about it. I was just very grateful and thankful that he was helping me as a new teacher. And as soon as I left Teachers College, that's when I started teaching at a private school. So it had nothing to do with the public board of education where he was. And at that school, I had eight Libyan refugees

who just arrived from a war-torn country. And the principal said, they're yours for the rest of the year. So that's how I got back into writing. And getting back into writing meant that I was getting back into feeling and giving people chances and not being to, you know, I'm alone, don't talk to me. And so, you know, I started making more conversation, things like that. So that affected my openness and my willingness to feel. And I'm sure you know this, when you do that, there's a flood of emotions,

a flood of things that you want to express, and you see things differently. So it was over that year and a half, I would say, that he reached out to me quite a few times, asking me to tutor his children. And I was under the impression that he was married. I had no idea that he wasn't, and he was much older than me. I never thought anything of it. But when I look back, I do, because it was all part of a plan, I believe. And so I took on that tutoring job. I started teaching the girls and you know he, he would send me messages and call me saying that he wanted to know what I was teaching and things like that but always got into personal things and that's how I found out he wasn't married anymore

and talked about the sadness that he had in his life. And so, I started seeing similarities. And I do believe that he knew my background. I'd been in Canada for six or seven years at the time and very, very sheltered. I was very sheltered. I had never dated before. I had never been in a relationship before. I had my life was just school, homework, school homework. And I lived with my parents at the time because in my culture you stay home until you're married. And so he would ask me questions about that. After every tutoring lesson,

he would ask me questions about my personal life. And to me, I thought, oh, you know, a high school principal is interested in knowing, I never saw it as a romantic thing at all. And then he said, you know, I wanna help you get a job with the public board. This is what you should do, contact this person, whatever. So I got an interview and he said that he was gonna help me with the interview.

And I arrived to the location, I hadn't slept the night before, I was very stressed out because I'm like, what if he asked me something that I don't know, I was really nervous. And I arrived and he was there early and I sat down and I was, you know, I had this big binder and I'm like, I've been planning this and I printed off this document and whatever and then he went like this and I looked at him and he goes, what perfume are you wearing? And my reaction was, why is it strong? Because I felt so ashamed that my perfume was strong enough that he smelled it and that he noticed it. He's like, no, it just smells good.

And that was the first time that I got a hint that maybe there's something more. It wasn't just the question. You can ask a woman what perfume she's wearing. It was the way that it all happened, and the way he was looking at me. And then things progressed from there where he expressed his interest in me and said really inappropriate things and eventually asked me out and I said, I don't do that. I can't do that because I don't do that. And I actually felt guilty for turning him down and rejecting

him. With that feeling of guilt, I started apologizing like I'm sorry, but this is how it is. And I said if, you know, if there's this actually happened like a week or two later when he asked me out again. And I said, I thought to myself, is there something that I'm doing that's wrong? So I just respond and said, if there to myself, is there something that I'm doing that's wrong? Right. So I just responded and said, if there's something you want from me that I can't give you, then feel free to stop contacting me. Because of the power imbalance, I didn't want to anger him. Yes. Yes. Yes. There was a lot that was on the line for me. And so I wanted

him to say, I don't want to talk to you anymore, instead of me saying, leave me alone, you're a jerk. So he was always in control of our dynamic and our contact and how we talked. He would call me whenever he pleased, and text me whenever he pleased, and he was always in control. And I accepted that because it felt natural. I didn't feel like I could raise my voice and say, you're putting me in an uncomfortable situation. And at the same time, the twist that many people question

is, well, then why did you develop an attachment to him? I developed an attachment over time to the attention that he was given me because I had never experienced that. You weren't invisible anymore. No, I wasn't invisible anymore. I was all of a sudden seen and heard. That's how I felt.

Yes. But I don't know if that was a reality. I don't think it was. Can I say something about that? Just as we go. The reason I wanted you to cover that in the detail you did is because I, first I want the men to hear that because men that are, and your responses to it, and your reactions and your thoughts,

men that are in positions of any kind of authority or control, I think sometimes, even sometimes, and in your case, it was conscious. Some are even unconscious, unknowingly, taking advantage of that control that they have, and not understanding the really awkward position and no wind position in some cases that they're putting a female in by communicating with them,

what is it in an inappropriate way like that? And so, even the fact that you felt guilty about not accepting those advances, it's revealing even for me to hear. Because sometimes I think as men, we should just talk about, I think the men think, well, she would just tell me, stop completely doing that.

But we forget there's an authority position. And then there's probably even a part for the ladies listening to us, so beautiful that you said it, that maybe even some of the attention you get on some level, some way, does feel good to you. And then you feel guilty for feeling that way. And so that's the real truth, the hard truth is that maybe there is a little bit of it that is appealing. It doesn't make

it any less inappropriate that it's taking place. And that's what we need to understand is that just the fact that someone gives you attention that you admire, you shouldn't feel guilty about that because it's normal to feel grateful that someone you admire or look up to gives you some type of attention. It's the way your self-worth operates, right? When you define yourself through the eyes of others, right? If someone who you really admire, admires you back, it's like, I'm good.

You elevate your self-worth in your own eyes because in someone else's eyes, your self-worth is elevated. And it makes it no less inappropriate when the man does that though. No. No. It's something that it's happening every single day to millions and millions of women from men.

Some intentionally, in this case, we both believe probably intentionally. And in some cases, men just need to be smarter and more careful about the positions. More sensitive to the positions they're putting women in. And that's why this is, if we get nothing, and we're going to get a lot more, if we got nothing out of the conversation today, it's for the men that are listening to this on live-a-half, listen to what this sounds like on the other side.

I felt like I was zero and to nobody and invisible unless someone welcomed me into their life. I really feel like in relationships, one of the things, the old Jerry McGuire movie, to nobody and invisible unless someone welcomed me into their life. I really feel like in relationships, one of the things, the old Jerry Maguire movie, where Tom Cruise walks in, if you've seen this movie, but his girlfriend in the movie ends up saying, you complete me. And I think that happens. Millions of people are looking for another person to complete them. And that's a form of building their home, right?

Yes. And I don't feel like a great relationship should be somebody completing it. Or even if people say, well, he's strong where I'm weak. That'd be great. That's an element, I suppose. But the fact of the matter is, is that I think another person can magnify you.

Absolutely. The great things about you. There's a joy. Right, they can do that. But do you agree with that, by the way, that too many people are looking for someone else to complete them rather than working on that? I do. Yeah. Too many people are looking for someone else to complete them rather than working on that? I do.

Yeah. Too many people look for someone to fill in the void that they have, because they truly believe that it can only be filled by a person, not by what you have to do for your own self. And that's why I said to myself, I need to build a home within myself so that at the end of the day when I'm feeling down, I come home to myself. Right? I don't go home to someone else. And I don't feel lonely and alone just because that person isn't beside me or doesn't exist in my life yet. I feel complete on my own. I feel like I can self-fulfill my needs. I don't need you to tell me that I'm worthy of love for me to believe that I'm worthy of love, right? I don't need you to tell me that I'm doing great things for the world, for me to

see that I'm doing great things for the world, even though I do fall into that sometimes. When someone tells me you're doing such amazing things, I say I hope I'm doing that. But coming home to yourself is such a beautiful thing because there's no void there. And the void that is there, you can fill it for yourself. It prepares you for people walking away, it prepares you for in many ways for dealing with grief of any sort. Right? The loss of a loved one, the loss of because if their own, if the value that you see in them is the fact that they fill the void for you, when they're gone, you're not struggling with them leaving, you're struggling with what they took with them when they left.

So how do you balance that with? By the way, totally beautiful. I totally agree. And you say it in such a way. I think people build homes in other people. Ironically, some people build homes in how many likes they get on social media. Oh, absolutely. They build homes in Getnafraari.

They build homes in what they look like. But the most prevalent one is building a home in another person, needing the validation of the person. But how do you balance that? This is so good. How do you balance that with wanting to be in a relationship and wanting to be in love and not being so closed off that I don't need you to validate me?

I don't need you to believe in me. How do you, are you learning that even, that skill even right now yourself? I'm learning that. Because it is an interesting balance, isn't it? It's like, I don't need your love to feel loved, but I certainly would like someone to love me. Right?

So how do you navigate that? What do you think the answer to that is? So there's a period after experiencing any kind of pain where you want to be closed off. It's a natural defense mechanism where you say, I'm never going to love anyone anymore. I'm never going to feel anymore. It's just kind of like when I ripped up my journal at 16 I don't want to feel anymore. I'm okay on my own. Just stay back When it comes to relationships and building homes within other people The mistake is that you've only built a home in that person right?

So to fix it you don't say I'm gonna build a home within myself and just be self-sufficient for the rest of my life. And if I do meet someone, then you know, we'll just live a life together, but there's no sharing or anything. You know, I'm independent and he would be independent and that's it. It would be to take time for yourself to heal and part of it would be building that home within yourself for yourself because another mistake that people make is that immediately after a relationship ends. You want to be in another one because you can't handle being

alone, right? Exactly, right. So you delay building that home within yourself. You continuously build homes for other people. You avoid it. You avoid it. Yeah, because you're addicted to the feeling. It's often not the person. It's often the feeling of being home. So taking time to build that home within yourself and not being in a relationship for however long you need to. It could be a month, it could be a year. Healing is very personal. But build that home within yourself so that when you meet someone, they're not completing you. They're not welcoming you into their own lives and saying,

here I'm going to give you everything that you want. But imagine meeting someone when you already have a home built within you and you build a home with that person. So perfect. Like a shared home. You have a home built within you and you build a home with that person. So perfect. Like a shared home. Yeah. You have a home within yourself.

Yeah. You don't need me to validate you. Yeah. You don't, you're not needy in a way where I have to validate you all the time. It's the same thing in my case. Yeah. So you have a home.

I have a home and we build a home together. Someone said to me, we were prepping. They said, Nesha was had so much pain in her life. You know, she talks about pain so regularly. And I literally as I was prepping and getting to know you more, I thought, I told this person, I said, I don't think she said any more pain in her life. I said, I think she's finally discovered the power of letting herself experience pain because this pain is what's allowed her to grow. So

many people avoid pain, avoid feeling things, and they cheat themselves out of the best parts of life, which is growing into this person that I now see sitting in front of me. When you're going through an abusive situation, you honestly define yourself through the eyes of one person. You see the whole world as just how that person sees you, and that person saw me as absolutely nothing, so I saw myself as absolutely nothing.

And completely degraded me and completely just put me down at every single instant. So to me, it was raising my voice was reconstructing my story, not as he told me I lived it but as I actually lived it. And coming to terms with that made me see, you were talking about the resistance to pain that I had where you said she just opened herself up to feeling the pain. That's really what it was. I was so afraid of acknowledging that I was so broken because that would tell me that there was a lot that needed to be fixing.

So the moment that I decided, you know what? What happened to me was horrible and it was painful and it was like, if poison enters you, you need to cleanse it somehow, right? You need to let it out and I wasn't letting it out. And the moment that I realized how horrible what happened to me was, then I could start healing and healing is not easy and that's why I wrote these mountains that you are carrying

you were only supposed to climb. Say that again please, I just say that again because I wanted you to say it later and I just want everyone to hear this. This is awesome, say that again. These mountains that you are carrying you were only supposed to climb. So beautiful. That changed my whole life. So this guy that I'm telling you about,

after continuously rejecting him, getting attached in a very unhealthy way, and not knowing how to deal with it, not knowing how to understand me accepting that attention and wanting it without shaming myself for that and not knowing how to be compassionate with myself. I felt that it was my responsibility developing those feelings was definitely my responsibility and that maybe he didn't do anything wrong. And so, with time, I was dealing with it on my own and he was aware that I was

struggling with this attachment, but I kept it to myself until he came knowing how vulnerable I was. I was working at his school at the time and asked me for money. And said that I need this for my mortgage, I think it was. And my children's lives are on the line and all that stuff. And so I just gave him money. And it was immediately after that that the abuse started becoming clear to me and the manipulation started becoming clear to me because immediately after I gave him money, I was of no value anymore.

And so his recollection of the experiences, nothing happened. I never expressed interest in you. You took it that way because you were raised in a very sheltered environment. If a man says hello to you, he's think he's in love with you. And so he was erasing all of those times when he asked me out and he said, I can't control myself around you, and he would call me so much and text me so much. And all that, he was erasing it and telling me, here's what happened. And that's called gas lighting. I'm not sure if you know that term. But, right?

Yes, exactly what it is. Yeah. And so that's what I'm telling you after a while. It was well after a year after everything completely ended that I named it for what it was. And now the healing was, that was the beginning of the healing. The beginning of the healing wasn't the ending of whatever that was. I can't even call it a relationship because it wasn't that. It was an experience. It was an experience. The beginning of the healing was the beginning of acknowledging that I was in pain, that something wrong happened to me.

And so these mountains that I mention are the feelings that weigh us down. The feelings of, I'm not good enough, something's wrong with me. I made mistakes. That whole experience was my fault. Those feelings were weighing me down everywhere I went. And I felt so, I was so worried for my reputation because he was in my community and I didn't know what he was going to tell everybody. I felt ashamed for having feelings, even though they were feelings that I was reciprocating to someone else. But in my culture, you only develop feelings towards someone that you're going to marry.

It's very serious. And so all the time I'm walking around feeling on edge, feeling like I'm not myself, I'm hiding something huge, I hit it from my family, I hit it from my friends, I hit it from everybody, and I was walking around with those mountains. When you're climbing and you reach halfway through and then decide to keep going and going and going, and you know that the higher you get, the more lonely you are, because people aren't going to going and you know that the higher you get the more lonely you are because people aren't going to climb with you. They're going to say you're still on that you're not done with it and when you get to the top you look down at

your pain and say look how far I've come. Oh my gosh you're all come on. And then you say, so good. And then you say to yourself, if I climb this mountain, I can climb another one. Right? I love that because one of the things that you write about is self confidence. Yeah. And you said that exact thing and it stood out to me. You said, if you're wondering whether you can accomplish something, look at all the other things you used to be afraid of, then you have overcome, right? Yes.

I mean, you guys, what reason I wanted you to hear her, first thing I always wanna point out for those of you that may not have a whole lot of experience, this is a Muslim woman. And I told her before we started, I said, listen, one of the great things about this is that there's many people that are listening to this, that have friends of all different, but they may not really even have a really great friend who's a Muslim, they may just not.

And so this woman is, she represents so many things. Her writing is so magnificent. It's so beautiful the way that you word things. Thank you. It affects me. You know, and our backgrounds are different, our styles are different. But I think oftentimes those are the people that reach you.

You have a bunch of guys like me, I don't know, I kind of sound like me. You say things in a way that no one else says to them. You did say that, you have to watch this in your relationships, that he was a narcissist and you're an empath. This is a combination that is really not good for the empath and a relationship. Just give everyone just a minute on, so they can identify it if they're in one. What that looks like, what a narcissist does and what an empath does

and why it's no bueno. Yes, so an empath is the perfect victim for a narcissist because when we were talking about you complete me, it is a complimentary thing. It really, if you imagine a heart that's just the way that you would draw a heart and then an inverse heart and just put them together, they're very complimentary. So a narcissist makes a lot of mistakes

and looks for someone to make excuses for them. An empath by nature makes excuses for people. A narcissist needs fixing, needs help, and an empath naturally wants to fix people and wants to help people, gives love unconditionally, blames themselves for anything that happened, and the narcissist is always blaming and projecting blame. So when he would blame me for things, I would accept that and say, yes, you're right.

When he would say, look at the way you're standing. Look at yourself. Look at your body language. Like, who do you think you are? When he would say those things to me, I would think I'm a nobody, you're right. Because as empaths, we take things, we absorb, and then we give all of ourselves.

And when you're completely depleted from giving everything within you, you have no defense mechanism to tell that person that's not true about me. Because you're completely depleted. They take everything out of you. That's just how narcissists are. So as an empath, you would be called one of their supplies. They come to you for whatever they need. And so that is what I was. And empaths love it. Obviously the empathy play. They love to build homes in narcissists. Yes. And so you have to really watch this in your relationship. You really

think that you can change them. Yes. And you cannot change them. You can change you, but you can change them. You can change you, but you can't change them. And there might be short periods of time. Like, here's the thing, and I'm sure you know this. But when you go through an experience where there's somebody who's very toxic to your well-being, at a moment when you're contemplating leaving, you think back to those very brief moments when he or she expressed to you love in their own way, and you say, they can do that. I know they can't. They just have to awaken it within them. True. And so you hang on to those little moments hoping that if there's one thing that you do differently, right, you put the blame on yourself, they changed because I changed. So if I go back

to the person I was when they first met me, maybe they will go back to the person they were when they first met me or they will treat me that way or that moment will happen again We hang on to those moments. Oh my gosh. When they've completely moved on That's brilliant and you just help the millions of people with that. I hope so by the way that is absolutely Totally true. That's exactly how the mind works. You go back to these little glimpses. Yes You think if I could go back to the Southern wow Really good. It's so many a couple things. I want we're helping people. Thank you by the way because you don't need to be doing this And I want to say one thing about about her speaking to

Nezwa is an incredible Speaker and I told her before we started the reason is she has that by the way when she comes speak to your organization Just so you know nobody moves When we talking about that you have the most dynamic screaming speaker in the world. This woman walks out on stage and I'm telling you, no one moves, no one's grabbing their cell phone, no one's looking around, no one's using the restroom. She has this ability to have presence in silence like no speaker that I've seen and she uses silence. She's comfortable in silence because the caliber of her content and the beauty of the way she writes things.

She will literally get up there at some points and just read to you what she's written and you'll be captivated by hearing it come out of the mouth of the actual author. So I want everyone to know, you can go to her website, you can go to her social media, you're talking about a speaker that will reach people. And I just know both men and women hearing this, you've made so many points that are so profound. But one of the things you talk about is self love. And I've had professional football players on here

who struggle with self love, who come up with that. People think that that's some sort of foofy new age. You and I both practice mindfulness, mindfulness, you know, doing yoga. Right, exactly. We're gonna hike them out and meditate. And self love is critical, no matter who you know, going to a spa, doing yoga. Right, exactly. We're going to hike them out and meditate. And self-love is critical no matter who you are if you're running into somebody on a football field. It's the key to a happy life. It's key to opening yourself up to God even. And so one of the things I want to say to everybody that I want you to talk

about self-love because we're going to, unfortunately, we're going to run out of time too because this is so good. I think it's wonderful and people should evaluate their behavior. You should observe your own thoughts, right? That's what causes us to grow. What really is, your stuff is so observational. You really have the courage to experience pain. You started to begin to finally step out and observe your own behavior, your own life experiences, evaluate your thoughts and behaviors, which is what growth is.

There's a fine line though when you do that everybody. I want you to hear between that and scrutinizing yourself. Observation and scrutinization are two different things. Observation is very healthy. Scrutinization is you begin to think something's wrong with you. You beat yourself up for the mistakes you've made or the negative thoughts you have or the sins you've had in your life. Be careful everybody to toe that line of observation and not scrutinization of yourself.

You can't become your own worst enemy where you're constantly scrutinizing yourself. And people fall into their habit once they go, I'm going to make some changes. Let me look at my life and I've watched people for many years of my life. Then they begin to scrutinize themselves as opposed to observe themselves. And so there's just that subtlety there. Talk about self lovelove a little bit because I think it's one of the topics you write most eloquently on

and I consider you to be an expert on. So what would you tell somebody, what does that mean and how do we find it and why is it important? So I look at self-love very differently from the way that people say it. In the past, I remember people telling me, go to a spa, do this, take care of yourself,

and to them, self-care was just doing something with your time that it was bought with money, basically. Right? And so, to me, when I envision self-love, I tell a person, imagine that you are one of your loved ones, and that you don't treat yourself in a way any less than what you would treat a loved one. So if a loved one of yours was going through crisis, what do you do? You listen, you are empathetic, you're kind to them, you're compassionate, you do everything it takes to help them. But when you are going through crisis, what do you do?

Something's wrong with you. It's your fault. You know, if you could go back and do, it's your fault. Something is wrong with you. You eat yourself up by criticizing yourself and scrutinizing yourself. Whereas if you were to imagine that you are one of your loved ones,

then you would give yourself the empathy and the kindness and whatever that you would give to someone else. Sometimes that could be doing yoga, right? To think of things. Sometimes that could be spending time with yourself or spending time with someone that you that truly is healthy to your existence. It's just, it's like a trick. Once you imagine, you know, think of all the people that you love and then put yourself next to them.

That's beautiful, by the way. Right? Yeah, that's brilliant. I'm tired of telling you, I'm not smart enough. I'm getting a little tired of this. I want to read something to you. We've got two things left. Yes.

I love this. Okay. You know why I love this? Because I've never had anything like this on my program. Really? No. And the people that are listening to this. I love this too Because I've never had anything like this on my program. Really? No. And the people that are listening to this.

I love this too. I really do. I really do. I know I kind of knew, but like it's just great that it's happening for me because I'm learning things. I do this show for my audience, but everyone's so well I do a show and it's for me. This has been for me, so this is awesome. And my camera guys are nodding, which means this is it too.

So I want to read just something from your book that I love. This is from Mind Platter, everybody, and it talks a little bit about, I think it's about intention, but I want to read this to you and just get your thoughts, but I want to read back to your own writing, which by the way, my voice is just slightly different than yours. Would you do all of the things that you normally do if you knew that no one was watching? When was the last time you did something good without anyone knowing about it and felt like you'd accomplished something? We tend to wait for people to praise us for things that we do so we can feel that there

was a value for what we did. We add meaning to what we do through the way that we know people will perceive it. And this is relative. It is relative to who we are trying to impress at which time and for what purpose. It is an innate drive that makes us want to be perceived in the most positive way by those who appeal most to us or those who have the power to have an impact in our lives. It is not wrong to want to be perceived in a good way. We all want to be good people.

But this becomes problematic when the praise that we receive becomes the purpose of what we do instead of wanting to do good things because of the goodness in our hearts, we want to do good things because we want to impress others to seem to be better than others or even to compete with others. When we have sincere intentions, nothing can stand in the way of us feeling happy and content with what we do. The beautiful part is that the rays of shining light will eventually penetrate through the darkest of nights and people see how truly good you are without you going out of your

way to prove it. Some of the most beautiful plants have their beginnings unnoticed under rocks, but that only makes them stronger. If the goal of the sun was to impress us with its light, it would rise when we wake up and set after we sleep. So this is probably what you'll get when you read or stop. It's not the same stuff you've ever heard before in your life. What were you thinking when you wrote that and what's that mean to you?

I was saying, you don't have to do things to impress people. It doesn't always have to be about wanting to look good in other people's eyes, but I had done that throughout my life. Of course, I did. We're, yeah, all of us do, because we see ourselves as the projection of what others see. I see myself as I think you're seeing me. And, oh, yes. Right? It's the truth.

The rays of who you are and your goodness will always strike through. You don't have to go out of your way to tell someone, look, I'm a good person or prove to them that you're a good person or that you're a hard worker. Do the work. Be a good person. And with time, that will shine through.

And about the beginning of many beautiful plants under rocks, many people genuinely feel like they are under rocks and undiscovered as long as they are not seen or heard by the one or two people that they want to see or hear them. So I'm saying those are some of the most beautiful beginnings because you learn with time that your goodness is not based on somebody seeing you, your goodness is based on who you are. I read your stuff and it was interesting. I took a minute and I just stopped and looked at myself in the mirror, which by the way, I get in front of a mirror every single day, right?

So does everybody listening to this? um I see myself on the reflection of my mirror in my car. Yes. It was interesting just as a practice. I just did it and I don't mean to sound who-fear or hoki. I just looked at myself in the mirror and I realized this is why today was so important for me and by the way I'm busy helping people growing. I think people look to me as advice. I had not just looked at myself in a while. You know what I mean? Like just looked at myself. And it was a great gift in your writing because it's been too long since I looked at myself. And I don't know being honest with you if I was real familiar with that guy right now. I've just been so busy.

And you talk a lot about that topic, and so I want my audience to know that. It's an interesting exercise if you just stop for a second, alone, and look at yourself in the mirror. And when's the last time you had a great conversation with you? When's the last time you really took a look at yourself? And so just talk about that. Do you like who you see in the mirror now?

Has there been a time when you didn't? And if there's someone listening to this who maybe hasn't done that in a while, it might not like that person is there any advice that you would give them. It's amazing that you've just said that before my last question. Because that was the most powerful thing I've done in a while. I'm like, you know what?

I need some time looking at me a little bit more right now. And I'm going to be doing that. So what would your answer to be? I think I lived my whole life seeing a different person in the mirror and thinking to myself that when that person changes, then I'll be okay. Because the person that I was seeing was the person who was not worthy of love and belonging, not worthy of being heard or seen,

not worthy of any of the goodness that this life has to give. And the period of time in my life that I became most foreign to myself was during that experience because I was being fed a story different from the one that I lived. So, you know, the intention is for you to start feeling like you're crazy. And I remember this vividly. One night, this is before anybody found out, my whole family didn't know. It was right before my dad went back to Lebanon because he visits us a lot. Or he looked at me and I was sitting on at the corner of the couch and he said, I had just shared a picture of me on Facebook.

I was like, this small, I was wearing a red and white dress. And you can't see my dad in the picture, but you can see me holding onto his hand very tightly. And I had shared that for Father's Day. And he told me, he said, when I looked at that picture, I, there was a spark in your eyes. And I remember that day, he said, I remember when you were that small,

I used to look at you and say, she's going places because of the look that you had in your eyes. And he looked at me and this was very heartbreaking because my dad doesn't express his feelings either. He said, I don't see that look anymore. And that hit me very hard. However, I was like, I was nearing the end of that period of feeling like I was done.

I ate up that story that was given to me and that was it. I was nearing the end. That's how I saw it. And I remember going upstairs, honestly, looking in the mirror and seeing someone that didn't resemble me. At all, I couldn't see who that person was. And I've described it this way before. I looked like like when the sky is choking on greatness, a greatness. There's clouds and it doesn't know whether terrain or be sunny or

whatever. There's just so much darkness and so much not knowing what to do, so much uncertainty. And that was close to the moment when I said, I need to name this, I need to name what happened to me in terms of what happened to me, because my father is one of the people who've been there from the beginning. And he was all of a sudden reminding me of a beautiful version of myself, of that look that I had. And my goal

was to get that look again. And now when people, it's so funny, when people comment and say, you look like you're glowing or you look like you're something is different, you're happy, you're at peace. I'm like, I am. I'm actually happy the NF piece. And so now obviously I have those days when I go through that because, and I'm sure many people out there would not want to admit this to themselves, but anybody in our field, you go through times where you're on a high of what people think of you, right? He said this and he said that and it gets to you, whether you like it or not. And so you start seeing yourself based on what they see, and based on there was a period of time

when I first started, of course, where I would say, oh, this post didn't do so well. And I would say it's because I shouldn't have put it out there or whatever. We all go through that. Your validation isn't saying like the actual like means that I'm okay, but it's like a it's a subconscious thing where you think something's wrong because you're looking for that validation of the outer world and so I stopped that a long time

ago. I started just I would post something and then put my phone away and not look at it and ask myself about my intention ahead of time. Is my intention to get likes? Or is my intention to genuinely help someone out there? And when you shift that, and you don't care if you get 20,000 or 1,000, you just don't care. So an answer to your question,

do I still experience it on certain days? I absolutely do. I think it takes unbelievable courage to look in the mirror, because you experience some of that pain and then you're going to grow from it. I got to tell you, my intention today was that you were going to help a whole bunch of people. And that's what's happening. I hope I did. Oh my gosh, you've helped so many people today.

I also promise the audience that being in this would be an experience. What I tell you, you've not had an experience like this before. You've heard things, felt things. There are people right now that different things you've said that they relate to them in this exact moment. Different story, same emotions. My message is to everybody. Be the person that you want to be.

Dress however you want. Project your image however you want. But let that be because that's what you want Not because you think that if you do something or are something that you're going to be a certain thing and someone else's eyes I've loved this. Me too. Me too. Yeah, it's so cool. Really cool. I wish it wasn't ending. Thank you so much. Thank you. So you guys need to follow me as you're over going to put it up on the screen here where you can find her on social media, her website and Instagram. And you're going to want to read her books. You're going to get both of them mind platter and the nectar of pain. You're they're just beautiful. They're just beautifully written. And she's just she's special so thank you thank you so much thank you

glad to sit here today so thank you so much everybody I hope you enjoyed today's show just want to remind you you already follow me on social media we do the two-minute drill on Instagram every day which means when I make a post on Instagram if you just make a comment within the first two minutes I do a daily drawing sometimes it's not a graph copy of my book one of my guest books coaching call with me. I just did five coaching calls last week. Sometimes coaching call with one of my guests,

max out gear. But every day, engage in the max out community, make a comment within the first two minutes. We select to win every day. And if you miss the first two minutes, just make a comment every day. And at the end of the week, we pick somebody who's made a comment every day too.

So there's all kinds of ways to win. Please share the message of the max out universe and of this program with your friends and the people that you love. It's the fastest growing program in the world. And today is gonna be something that's gonna change so many people's lives. So God bless you everybody and max out. And my let is the premiere, inspirational speaker, life coach and peak performance expert

in the United States today.