I’m seeing a trend in the online space and offline space in social work, therapy circles amongst coaches etc. And I am VERY observant of trends of reading between the lines,  spotting patterns in the transformation of #consciousness

Having studied Jungian Psychology and Islamic Psychology since the early 1990s and not just studied it but also having applied it to myself and my life and my challenges and used it to overcome my personal and professional challenges and also used both with my social work and coaching clients regularly, I find the trends interesting. I started my business late but I have been in the helping industry since late 1980s, I started young as a volunteer counsellor for the Incest Crisis Line, long before the Online Coaching Industry was born.
So what I have observed most is the emphasis on mindfulness and then the emphasis on somatic techniques and approaches.

There is thought leadership now since the birth of social media not leadership.

I grew up on the importance of leadership not thought leadership

I am mostly into the practical solutions and the application of theory rather than theory.

I am a practitioner not an academic.
Although I have written in academic journals like European Judaism and Youth and Policy.

Being a social worker and working on the ground with complex problems for over thirty years, I guess that is why I cannot just be a therapist.

I found it very frustrating being a therapist when I used to counsel Muslim women in my loft study or my mum’s front room.
I am glad I found the Coaching Industry as I know it’s easy for me to offer transformational coaching. I don’t have the patience to offer therapy.

And why don’t I because Western Psychology is so based on regulation of the mind, rewiring the mind etc.

I am a healer.
I realise that now
Although I fought this gift of mine for the last few years worried that the world wouldn’t believe me.
Yet I have this gift of reminding others that their own bodies have this innate ability to heal themselves
So I am an unconventional healer
I don’t like taking credit for healing others
I just remind others that they have forgotten what Western medicine or western psychology wants us to forget.

This may surprise you but my own white western therapist uses somatic exercises to help me. She learnt them from a Sufi counsellor.


Ever since I started my business in 2018 I use breathwork and the body’s intelligence to help you face your fears, find your flow, to help you find ease and find peace and balance.

My approach is wholistic aka holistic and not just rewires the mind, it explores what is happening in your gut, in your heart, in your soul and also your mind but definitely in detail explores what is happening in your body.

The trend I see that there are two groups.
One who wants to deny what is happening in the body and the existence of the soul

The other that tends to emphasise the mind that is the centre of intelligence and occasionally it brings in the gut to say that the gut is the second brain but doesn’t go into any depth regarding that. There is chemical imbalance and if you regulate with medication, then you will be ok.  That’s the teaching of the second group. There’s an emphasis on medication.
It feels like there is a split in consciousness.


One group knows how to stay with feelings, sensations in the body and is willing to experience them, even when it is scary.

We ride them.
It’s like my hot flushes I always rode them through perimenopause and now as I experience menopause, I ride these flushes.
I always was anti hormone replacement therapy. I know for some women this has helped them but I never advocate meditation for myself or my business clients.

I have always been anti medication even when I have been in pain.
Unless I have had surgery, I don’t take medication.
Meditation is last resort for me.

I saw what lots of medication did to my mum and my dad.
And my mum learnt all about herbal medicine from her uncle so I get angry about her dependency on allopathic medicine.

However I digress back to this post, when you stay with the feelings, the body sensations, there is a freedom that results you don’t feel caged by your body. You approach each age as a different season.
So back to the two groups.

One group rides the emotions, the body sensations

The other group I notice regards feeling  and body sensations just with the mind intellectually as something wrong, something abnormal.

Same human experience feelings etc
Two completely different responses and perceptions to the same human experience.

Here’s the truth that I know from my 3 decades of being in the helping industry by supporting individuals and families with trauma, complex trauma (I have been dealing with serious youth violence for 28 years)

The human nervous system resolves stress somatically


Now sometimes what you think you are experiencing is cognitive dissonance

It is not
Recently I have started to say to myself and to my clients and to my friends and to my family is this

It is what it is

You are not experiencing cognitive dissonance

What you are going through is absolutely natural

So listen to your body

It feels counter intuitive but it is not

You are grieving

You are slowing down because your body wants you to although your mind finds it difficult to rest

Your body knows best
You are afraid
You feel excited
You are feeling what you are feeling so FEEL it.

Stop fighting your body

Sometimes when we are fed the lie we are broken, we are in survival mode, we are this and we are that, we are fed it so often, we start believing it

The personal development industry is a billion dollar industry due to this lie



Sometimes when you just feel the fear, the grief, the excitement, the joy even (yes I have had clients who have repressed feeling joy) and let go and surrender yourself to FEEL than you stop being in this cycle of freezing or fighting or floating

I have dealt with complex trauma as a social worker and as a coach

I have also dealt with what high achievers think as trauma but it isn’t

High Achievers are experiencing stress, anxiety and depression

Normal levels

Sometimes you have to let go and experience the breadth and depth of feelings and body sensations.

In the online space I see often ordinary stress being defined as trauma.
As someone who branded herself as a trauma recovery coach this is doing a disservice to humanity.
In my experience even complex trauma can make you stronger rather than weaker.
“Trauma is the training ground for leadership” I am going to quote myself here Taniya Hussain said this
However normal stress and normal anxiety and normal depression and feeling bored is not trauma and it definitely is not complex trauma

There’s a difference between all of them

This is why when individuals invest in the #reflectivespaces I offer healing happens SO much MORE FASTER

I understand how intuitive the body is

I understand how your body has this innate healing ability to know what it needs

It usually is the mind that doesn’t quieten that keeps you in this loop of repeating the life long pattern of keeping you stuck

Your body

Your soul
Your gut knows how to flow

You were born to FLOW

Your body knows how to heal itself

Of course seeing someone who can recommend you some foods to eat, herbs, music to listen to, community to be around helps.

Sometimes though you don’t need years of therapy




Where you remember you have AGENCY
You are the author of your life and you can withstand normal stress, anxiety, depression etc

This is what you learn you can deal with stress and anxiety and take it in your stride rather than become dependent on a coach or therapist that keeps feeding you the lie that you are broken

You were never broken!

#traumaandthemuslimalchemist
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#justasocialwork
#transformationofconsciousness

P.S reading this article, the ideas resonated with you and you prefer a holistic approach why not book a consultation with me!

Here is the link to book a 90 minutes consultation!

https://calendly.com/contact-3453/the-reflective-space-consultation