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Hey fellow Gen Tiers, those of us like our spiritual life with a twist. So, as you can see, we are back again with the genuine pleasure of being joined by Dr. Bahara Sahebi. Um and we're going to continue our conversation of religious trauma, especially focused in on the question of why do people stay in situations that are traumatizing like this, and then look at like some of the impacts that kind of follow people out and the kind of things that she sees in her practice, too. So, we're kind of specifically focus on those two things, kind of building up what we were talking about last time. Thanks so much for coming on again, Dr. Sahebi. Absolutely. Thank you for having me again. I appreciate it. And we were already talking off camera of like, "Okay, here's our plan for the next one and the next one." So We have a lot of fun things planned ahead. Yes, definitely. Okay, so just as the intro for Dr. Hashemi Sahebi, her clinical specialty is in couples and family systems and treatment of trauma, as well as systemic clinical supervision. Her recent scholarship is focused on collective trauma and how chronic repression, authoritarian political systems, and large-scale geopolitical forces shape psychological life within families and communities. So, there's our religious trauma kind of thing we were talking about. And um uh she has served as assistant program director and clinical assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern University and teaching faculty at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She's the author of what sounds like a textbook, right? Uh Integrative Systemic Therapy in Practice. So, congratulations on that, right? And uh the book

in Italian. I have to POINTING [laughter] THAT OUT. I CAN'T READ IT, BUT YOU KNOW, I'M GOING TO TRUST that Rutledge Rutledge did a great job, the publisher.

[laughter]

Yeah, yeah, I saw that what we were we were looking at. Now available in Italian. Yeah, I know.

I have the book. I just can't read it.

Uh though to list some of where her recent work has also appeared, it's been in Fair Observer, Rest of the World, Independent UK Voices, Global Voices, and Family Therapy Magazine, as well as at her Substack. And Substack are kind of funny for me to read, so I guess you say Substack. doc dot com at Dr. Sahebi. So, you know, all the places she can find they can find you where you're uh she's spreading all this like great work. Okay. So, our questions Oh, I got to say the other thing

that everyone always has to say, which is we want to like keep uh sharing the work of like great people like Dr. Sahebi. So, if you can kind of share this episode, maybe give a like, maybe give a review, do all the things that people always ask you to do, that would be greatly appreciated. Again, it's a labor of love and uh you know, uh we just feel like we're trying to share important things in a kind of an important time. So. All right, our questions de jour. I guess the first one was why do people stay, which I guess, you know, a lot of people wonder about. What is it that traps people in these things? So, throw it out to you, Dr. Sahebi. Yeah, last time we talked, we talked about a whole lot of areas of harm that are uh so uh it's so easy to see how harmful they can be. So, you're right, sometimes we may wonder, especially when I work with some people from Jehovah's Witness backgrounds or um you know, certain sects of Islam that they come from. Uh when I check in with them, you know, the the essence of what I get from them is because these systems don't just provide rules. They provide identity. They they provide belonging and a sense of moral certainty. You know, uh one of the things I think I mentioned this last time that I ask uh my students all the time is do you know the one thing we all have in common? One thing that every single one of us on this planet have in common. What do you think that is? I think uh we were like wondering about this when we were doing our last episode, too. I guess it's a sense of belonging or something, right?

right. Exactly. It's a sense of being

to I was going to say poop, but Yes.

Yeah. Everybody does that, too. Yeah, there's a there's A WHOLE BOOK ABOUT IT. That's right. Daniel is slightly influenced by the presence of his dog, too, in this particular

So, his mind is very busy.

it's the dog in the room, so yeah, we were talking [laughter] about that. Yeah. Pre- pre-episode. Because of this, because of this uh they provide a sense of identity, belonging, a sense of moral certainty, it's really hard to leave. Leaving means you're losing your family, your community, even a sense of who you really are. And staying is often not about whether they agree with it all, but it's really about survival at at some point. And psychologically, it's usually easier to um kind of reinterpret that harm than to confront all the possibilities of the way that the system itself is unsafe. So, many times people have that internal struggle with themselves of what is life outside of the system going to look like for me? I apologize. I just dropped something. And you heard it live right on here. So, that is a really, really difficult thing to grasp for people. And we can talk a little bit more about the impact on the individual, the self, their thoughts, their emotions in a little bit, too. Yeah, I think Oh, sorry, Daniel. You got something? No, I was going to say this is like uh the the sort of toxic side of don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I can hear, you know, many people who I know who are in I we could say relatively toxic religious communities. They might not view it as that way, but they would say it gives the sense of community, it gives people a sense of um connection, you know, it brings people who might not necessarily come together together for this common thing of prayer and doing good for each other, but I think to to your point, that's part of the coping mechanism that goes on internally when those things are trying to essentially separate you from aspects of yourself, like intentionally keeping the mirror fractured if we're going to use a uh a cabalistic uh reference, you know, and so the the the more that you get fractured on the inside, the more that you have to then do this internal bargaining, if you will, for why it is that it's okay for you to be internally fractured, as opposed to finding something else that makes more sense, that actually vibes with you more internally, you'll stay in this thing that is m- probably not healthy for you if you're going to weigh it out on a scale, but you'll do it because you don't want to be ostracized or ousted from the people who are also probably likely having the same thing, the same internal feelings. You're absolutely right. I uh you know, you just made me think about all the families that I have worked with who are actually uh they grew up Catholic. Some of them they have had uh really traumatizing experiences as children in within the Catholic church that they grew up in. And now that they're adults, they marry married somebody outside of the um Catholic de- denomination, and now they that they've had children, they want their children to go through communion, they want them to go through all of it. And their partner doesn't seem to understand, "Look at what's happened to you. Why do you want our child to go?" And this it cre- This is When they sit in the session, they just it's very difficult for them to sit with how it creates a kind of internal fragmentation. Well, if I they don't learn all that stuff, then what what am I ever going to teach them, right? So, religious trauma the impact on the individual is in many different forms. It's the experience of self, for example. The experience of self where the person is questioning their own moral compass and negative self-evaluation of themselves. Well, maybe it was my fault. Maybe my parents weren't there enough when I was going and I'll be there for my kid. Maybe I'll sign up as the um uh

[clears throat]

um Bible study teacher, you know, so that I have an eye on them. So, there's a lot of that self-evaluation, family evaluation, rather than looking at the system. Uh kind of blaming the victim in many ways.

Yeah. I get the feeling like building on Daniel's metaphor, it kind of creates like a fractured self-concept or something if you want to use a phrase for that, right? It splinters it or something, right?

Absolutely.

And then like I think that's really fascinating your work cuz you kind of talk about the splintering that can happen in like multiple ways, right? Uh there's like a the public face that you show the world versus maybe like the more private things and you feel the tension between them, but you're not sure what to do about that angle as an example, right? Yes, and that impeding trust in your own and others and the world. You know, how how can I trust anything outside of what I know? There's confusion about where one's personality ends and um indoctrination actually begins. How where where is that line? How would I even know that? This happens in um uh authoritarian systems as well, where right now, as I mentioned in the last podcast, I'm Iranian and seeing some people um just fall into the indoctrination of the trauma that has been inflicted on them for almost half a century through a the religious means. But because there is an outside um there's something from outside challenging it, there's a tendency to fall back on, well, who am I without this? And retreating back into that system. Confusion about uh for example, striving for psychological imperialism, you know, I'm I'm better than that if I am part of this. I remember when we first came to the US, my mom, who is no longer believer of any of this, um she was very nervous about even though we we came here because there was so much religious trauma and all of that, but she had uh the thought that if we went to um Catholic not Catholic, but um Bible study on Sundays Moody Church actually in Chicago for 2 years. Hahaha. Moody.

Don't laugh at me. It's a very conservative church. If you don't know what it is, that's why we were like, wow, that's conservative. I didn't speak English, so it was fine. I was there for the snacks, but uh her thought process was hey, religious people are, you know, they're safer, they're better, you know, in some there's some sort of um striving for psychological imperialism, like if if they're around other families who also follow something, it's better than nothing. Um so, I mean, she no longer thinks like that, but that's why for 2 years we went to church until my dad kept falling asleep during sermons and they eventually got kicked out, and here we are. My grandpa was usually like hungover and semi passed out when [laughter] I was in church, so I know the experience. Yeah, exactly. So, that whole spiritual identity crisis that comes up for people as they there's a whole wanting to grap- grasp onto it in order to know who they are. That rejection of culture of origin for them could equal rejection of the whole self. Mhm. And if that culture of origin is very much tied to a religious practice or religious mindset, then it's like then what what is my culture without this? I hear this from a lot of people that I work with who say their culture is also um Islam, like they're Muslim by culture. Um so, they're from different countries in the world, but they associate themselves with the a culture that is Muslim. And I always challenge that by asking, "What does What does a the culture of Islam look like?" And they they don't really know how to answer it. They've never thought about it that way because it's easier to hide behind that than say, "I'm American or I'm Indian or I'm, you know, what- wherever, somewhere from Africa or something." To be able to differentiate themselves from other people in who live in that country by hiding behind a um religious part, making that part of the culture. So, that becomes the experience of self and also challenges with the task of self-differentiation, which may lead to a cultural cutoff, actually. So, in my case and people like myself in the diaspora, because there has been so much challenges for so long with religious trauma inflicted by the Islamic Republic who's in Iran, not because of Islam, but their use of Islam. And many many people inside the country and outside now identify themselves as atheists. They refuse They refuse to even um think about any religion, and they feel entitled to be able to say, "I hate you know, fill in the blank, whatever their religious background is maybe. And there's no discussion to be had. So, that piece is really important because if there's challenges with the task of self-differentiate, then it's going to be all in or all out. We don't have this I'll understand and respect where you're coming from. It's just it's all bad. And this religious trauma shifts and shapes the experiences of your own inner world through this lens of shame, fear, uncertainty. This is particularly true for those who live within this paradoxical realities. When I was growing up, what we had to do in in Iran, like outside of the house, the way we had to dress, the way we had to carry ourselves, what we had to say, was very different than the life we lived inside. So, it was a constant make sure they know that we don't listen to music. Make sure that that you don't say we had a party and, you know, this paradox creates a whole lot of identity crisis shifts for people.

Yeah, I know a lot of people from like Eastern Europe who were like, you know, grew up under the Soviet system. So, you talked about like authoritarian uh or totalitarian type systems of different types, right? Yeah. And they had that same thing. It was very clear like what we do at home stays at home. What we stay say at home stays at home, and we show a different face out to the world, right? So, we don't put a target on ourselves some way or another, right? Now, imagine what that does to a developing psyche, where you're trying to learn how to be human, but what is okay to be human, what is the right way to be a good person, who is right, who's wrong. That uh split, that fragmentation of the self that I'm talking about, uh makes people even grow up into adulthood not truly always knowing where that indoctrination continues to carry with them and how much of it is themselves and who they are and what they're supposed to do in this world and just kind of shifting from that indoctrination from the religion and the culture that kept that to now doing what everybody else says is the right thing to do, whether it's choosing a career path or having a certain home or, you know, even everything is following a certain order. And that's the part that people aren't really aware of, that there it is wrong to be different. It is not okay to be different. And that really does come from that sense of uh being raised within a religious uh uh the trauma within a religious culture. Which is why religious ethno-states, regardless of the religion, are bad. Yes. Full stop. Yes. Because this is baked in not only in the in the micro communities of the you know, religious structures that are present in the culture, but they are part of the culture as a as a whole and then they're baked and then then it's baked in the government. Yes. And so they operate then from a top-down and it just seems to me that like and and and you guys can certainly think for yourself. I cannot think of a religious-based ethno-state that has not gone more conservative over time. And I don't and I do mean, you know, religious and politically both conservative both. They're they're getting tighter and tighter. They want less and less freedoms as time goes on. I can't think of anyone off the top of my head that is like really giving a lot of you know, like some some of the Islamic countries, you know, maybe they don't maybe women are allowed to drive sometimes. You know, like, okay, cool. It's 2026. Great, you know, but they're not getting their own not buying their own homes or like having you know, I mean, Eric and I joke about this regularly on the show, um but it was in the '70s in this country when women could have their own checking account checking account in this country. Sign a lease, have a credit card. Yeah, I mean That's like my mom's generation.

In the decade I was born. Yes, in the decade I was born. Yeah. My mom's

19 Eric, women's suffrage 1919, is that or something like this? Something like that, yeah. Yeah. I think the first Yeah. Mhm. So, it's not been that long. This this this idea has not been around you know, women having equal rights has not been that long. So, I I just you know, we get to talk all that and then of course we get to dunk on as many things as we can while we're doing it. So, I figured

thing I got to say about this which is like just because of the name of our podcast and it's a complicated question, but I like I read a lot of the Dalai Lama, right? So, there's a kind of a religiously spiritually based culture in some ways. And he does seem like he's trying to get it where you don't have like sectarianism. Like I was on retreat over the weekend doing my meditations and doing my stuff and I read like the Dalai Lama at times or other like, you know, uh and you know, you could see in some of his essays he's trying to say like, well, we can't be sectarian. If we are sectarian, we're going to cause problems, right? Yes, they have different religious you know, they have different groups in Tibet, right? There's four really big ones and then there's other ones too, right? And then you know, so they have their own divisions, you know? And you could see he's trying to get it to where like, let's get out of our sectarianism cuz it always goes someplace bad. Yeah, totally, right?

You know, Eric, actually this worked out really well in the '90s and the '80s, you know, even in the 2000s. We're now at a point in the zeitgeist where this middle line no longer works. So, trying to you know, play that fairness and stay in the center, people aren't buying it anymore. They want authenticity. People are tired of the way that um religion has been used to indoctrinate them rather than the essence of why religion was brought on anyway to, you know, um build some laws of the land thousands of years ago. Those things have shifted. And

that's challenging, right?

It is.

going to be people within, you know, you know, and we haven't talked about this too much, but there's going to be people within that subgroup they're going to be like, well, then you're not really one of us, right? If you're not going to full on with everything, then you're not really one of us, right? But you can see that tension within the group.

Muslims have the same issue. Those who continue, you know, still believe in Islam and want to follow uh that sometimes they are caught in this cross If they're not Iranian, because Iranians, it doesn't matter if they're Muslim or not, they know after half a century of what the Islamic Republic is about. But the non-Iranians, they feel like they are uh going against their religion if they speak bad about the Islamic Republic. Where Islamic Republic has nothing to do with their religion. The same thing is true for Israel. So, these are the ways that they trap you in you not being this the systems of power for you not to challenge them from that macro level that we're talking about right now to the smaller level like within the family unit or within like a school unit and everything else. And that's why religious trauma really doesn't get to be talked about because I mean, what's there to talk about? This is either if it's happening to you then there's God's will, right? Or there is a definite stop at the end of a conversation with God's will, whatever is supposed to be will be and you need to let it go. And we can see that very clearly from all the Catholic Church um victims. They're survivors and how they've been treated over the years. Yeah, there's just like incredible I was just thinking as you were talking. I had a student who just graduated from our family originally from Iran. Congratulations Shadi.

And we were I would ask her periodically like how you doing? You know, I would check in with her about these things and you know, how's your family? Everybody okay? And you know, we had our kind of like we were saying like congrats, you know, see up the road. You know, you've been through this with students too, sure. I'm sure, right? And she said, you know, she really appreciated like, you know, my being open to, you know, like talking with her about this. She said it made her feel heard and I was like, okay, great. You know, that was the intention. But it was also interesting watching her in the sense that like, you know, her feelings are ambivalent, right? Because she doesn't like the government of Iran. Right? And yet at the same time you get this like twoness thing. It's a very like painful human human position to be in, right? Yeah. And this is why I'm here to tell you all Iranians are not okay right now. I need everyone to take this away. We're not okay. We show up. We we're good at putting on a facade and just but our families aren't okay. We're not okay. There is like a double bind we're stuck in. It is um it they're getting killed with the bombs and without the bombs, as well. So, the and and a lot of it it religion is being used more than ever to shift that thought. And it's really hard for us to have these conversations. So, you know, going back to how does it impact identity, what you just brought back back with Shadi's example, made me think about the impact on unresolved thoughts, like the cognitive patterns, and also um affective, all like the way that we process our emotions, all the thoughts and emotional constraints that we've been holding on to. And we're not even you we don't even know that they're there until we're confronted with this kind of trauma. Let me give you some examples. Challenges with self-regulation. How am I going to be able to tolerate some of this distress? The experience of guilt about lifestyle choices. I chose I didn't choose, I was brought here, but you know, people who have migrated. I chose to migrate, they think to themselves, when I should be the one over there suffering, too. But I'm suffering more because I'm watching it. Almost kind of like a survivor's guilt or something.

Yes, yes. That's what I was going to say next, exactly, survivor's guilt. That that may contribute to patterns of self-fulfilling prophecy. So, I'm going to get in my own way of my own happiness because I I don't deserve this, you know? What why why is it I I've asked that of myself all the time, like why is it okay for me to be okay and not them? And I was a child, I was 8 years old when I was brought out of the country. Shame about one's cultural identity and inferiority within the dominant culture is actually part of it, too. So, those of us from these marginalized communities, um specifically, you know, those who are the culture and religion have kind of, you know, enmeshed in one, the way that they were raised, you know, I we were talking about Jehovah's before, you know, I'll give myself as an example. There is a sense that everybody already has a mindset on who you are. Now, you need to show up and show up even better and at a higher level because every single person who you're coming across is going to say, "Well, I knew an Iranian once. I knew somebody from Jehovah's Witness once." And so, you're carrying this um this inferiority, whether you want to admit it or not, where you need to continue to represent an entire population, and you need to be able to show that population differently in every single interaction that you have without actually pointing it out. Yeah, you had said something really fascinating, and one of the things I was like doing in my study and kind of getting familiar with your work before we did our interview even last week. And you had talked about like kind of this perfectionism thing that you can find in people from, you know, these kinds of like uh you know, backgrounds, for these kinds of traumatic experiences. And like, what I hear in that is there's kind of like multiple levels to that. On the one hand, probably that religious upbringing demanded a kind of perfectionism anyway. That's right. Yes. You had to do things a very particular way. It had to be done. And if it wasn't, then, you know, you could feel all the shame and guilt that I wasn't perfect.

Otherwise, God will punish you. Yeah, God would be mad at me. Yeah. And then, on the flip side, now you're in a situation where I still have to be perfect. I already have that tendency in me, right? But now I have to be perfect cuz I have to show myself as the perfect example of whatever this background is, right? Right? To give myself as the perfect example of whatever this is. And I think that's, you know, a really fascinating observation, you know. So, you will multiple parts of this kind of together. You make that point, which is really interesting. So, this what you just gave as an example, that behavioral symptom, the perfectionism, the hyper-vigilance, a compulsive need to perform, exists in a particular manner that oscillates between avoiding punishment or provoking re-enactment in a way, I want to say. That once indoctrination stops, continues on. That behavior continues on. I was really curious what what what you Like you used to go a little bit more into the re-enactment part of this, cuz I heard you use that word before, and I was like, "Okay, I want to like explore that a little bit."

Let me see you do that again. You did this right. Let's keep Can you do the same way again? Good. But, you know, we can't continue to do the same

keep repeating the same things to get the same approval or something. You find yourself on this like you're like the mouse on the thing, and you keep going in that same

right? Oscillation between avoiding punishment and provoking re-enactment in a way. And sometimes provoking re-enactment can also, you know, unconsciously or subconsciously can go into kind of I I deserve, I am bad, I know what I've done. So, let me do something that will punish me. Like God will punish me some way, you know. So, it can work both ways. But, regardless, the whole point of this perfectionism and hyper-vigilance is being this oscillation between the two, and not even realizing that's where it's coming from. The first moment somebody tells me about their perfectionism tendencies, I ask about their their experience with religion growing up, what it was like. Um many, many times you see this with Catholic upbringings because there is a shame aspect of it going to um um what do they call it? The Confessional? Confessional?

Yes, there. You go to the confessional to So, people who say, you know, I didn't even do anything this week, but I have to go make up some stuff to say because I still have to say it, you know? So, I I hear all of that. So, you're constantly sitting with that I need to confess to something that you did or didn't do because you there's a need to work toward a perfectionist point of view. Yeah, talking about that kind of personal and that how you feel about this, Daniel, but there's the old like you can take the boy out of Catholicism, can but can you take the Catholicism out of the boy? Kind of thing or the girl or whoever it is, but you know, and I remember you know, like I'm I'm better on it now, but I can certainly have this feeling of like moving away from that. You know, we got this spirituality podcast. We also like to talk kind of personal. So, I can definitely have this feeling of like, "Oh, that's lingering Catholic stuff. That's lingering Catholic stuff." And then doing things like Zen or Daoist things or you know, Buddhist tantra things like it's not the same vibe and the same wavelength and it doesn't have that same attitude towards, you know, those perfectionistic things. And there was a tension I felt for sure. Like exactly like what you're talking about. Like if you didn't do something right, you'd feel so bad. You know, you'd feel so bad. Mm. Eric, we did you know, we did our retreat um a couple weeks ago and there's a a purification There's multiple purification practices, but there's one purification practice in particular that we went over and I was talking with one of our retreat participants about it because it does have um remorse and kind of removal of guilt and you know, the sense of like trying to work on forgiveness, you know? As part of the practice and somebody was asking me they're like, "Well, I don't feel like I did anything bad and I've and I've heard people talk about this before because I have mentioned this when I first learned that that particular practice. um I don't know who I don't know who was talking about this but a famous person they were like, well, you know, you probably killed some bugs on your windshield on your way over here and you're walking on the ground so you probably stepped on some ants, you know, and in your life you definitely killed some spiders in the house that you probably didn't mean to and there's maybe some unintended unintended consequences from things that you've done

Welcome to voice over voice over speech descriptions of items. I don't know what happened. Sorry. Yeah, I don't know. Um Anyways

hear you. You're on mute. Yeah, well, that's not getting edited out either. Everything stays. Everything stays.

know what happened. So anyway, [clears throat] but yeah, so it it's a podcast. Yeah, but it's one of these um it's something where like you have to I think accept that there are imperfections that you're unaware of and that that's just part of existing. But I think that the distinction that that Bahar is trying to make is that there's a difference in accepting that you're going to make mistakes and pushing that to the forefront of something that you have to wrestle with as part of who you are. The sort of uh what do they call that? Original sin. And that you're living within I I use this analogy regularly in the clinic. Uh remember that game what's that game called? Emergency or um I forgot what it's called where you pull the bones out of the body. Operation. Operation. There you go. Yeah, that's it. Okay. Yeah, so the game Operation for those who don't know it's like a it's like an outline of a human body and there's a bunch of bones inside and you with these little tweezers you try to pull the bones out but if you touch either the sides you get a little electrical feedback and I feel like with with particular religions and it's more than just Catholicism for sure that has guilt as a part of it it's definitely like playing that game Operation that you could you have to operate in such a very tight narrow line. And if you stray too much, like you said earlier before, Bahara, when being different is wrong. And if you stray from those lines at all, you get the very clear sense of like that is wrong, get back in line. And so there's very thin line of of being accepting of of our own flaws and our own mistakes and our own misgivings even with the best intentions, right? The road to hell is paved in good intentions. And and then also knowing that like we [...] up sometimes. Yeah. And I don't you know, that's a it's a very thin line between religious dogma that you're [...] up constantly and a spiritual practice of trying to improve. Yeah, the thing that gets me in like you know, with Dr. Hasabi is Sahebi is sharing is imperfections, pronunciation. Is just the like the idea like can you set your own moral compass? I think that was the big thing. That's the phrase that makes it different for me for sharing stuff that might be helpful for people who might be listening. I mean that was the big transition. Can I set my own moral compass or not? Or am I burdened by a moral compass that was sort of internalized from some place else? And like you said, you know, that it's hard to to do that when you come from these very you know, traumatizing religions we could say or these very high control religions, right? You can't set your own moral thing and I think that's just you have to be able to do that as a human being, right? And that was the big difference for me as far as my you know, being able to share on that. Bahar, would you say that that's part of it? Would you say that that's inherently I mean I know that the language is slightly different, but would you say that like the removal of your ability to set your own moral compass as a requisite for or as a as a consequence of religious trauma is found in in many traditions that you've experienced? Absolutely. And it's it goes along with I was going to say what you always talk about and you teach me about can you unlearn what you already know? Can you um this is part of your conditioning? What you're saying is part of that. Can you um see that? Because that's where the constraint is. Now, what you just said is it isn't just about religion, right? Because the person may feel like, "Okay, yeah, I have nothing to do with the religion anymore." But let me give you an example. Last week I was talking to a family that I work with and we were I just had a blanket I pulled up and she was like, "Oh my god, this is so pretty. There's so many colors in it." And she was so mesmerized by the colors that we started talking about her um her um relationship with color. And uh she started talking about, "Yeah, I always notice in your house things are colorful, you know, it everything." And she started talking about that and I said, "I noticed that everything is very beige in what you wear and what you know, your couches, your everything is beige. Just white walls, beige walls, beige everything." And she said, "Yes, because this is what everybody's houses look like." And I said, "Actually, no, I've noticed that it to be true more for like people who are Iranian, you know? I don't see other people having beige everything. I see colorful walls, colorful pillows and everything." And she didn't realize until we talked that for her it was part of it's not okay for me to individuate and all of a sudden bring in some color into my house. Even though I love color, even my baby stuff has to be beige. So, we started to talk about obviously color does something to you emotionally, spiritually. It pulled at you. And other people that see my blanket, they don't have a reaction, but you just forgot what you were talking about. It lifted your spirit in a way. What would you say if, I don't know, you pick up something of color and put it in your background, like two pillows, something that can be changed? And she was very hesitant. And I felt like almost like if somebody she could, and then if somebody came, she would have to hide it. So, this is part of that religious indoctrination that people don't realize it's part of them. Because now they're carrying it into other areas that they belong. That even though they love something, they can't be that something because it's not appropriate to be that. Other people will not accept it. So, part of that's I guess like a uh I can't express my own individual identity, right? On some level. Like that's been toxified. But the other part that jumps out at me, and we haven't really maybe hit on this exactly yet, but like sensuality in a way, right? The colors, the senses. And then I guess sexuality is part of this, too, you know, for a podcast like ours. But that whole idea is like is that kind of like forbidden things, or is it okay to enjoy the senses? Is it okay to kind of experience the senses and then even beyond that, you know, the sensuous, the erotic, and those kind of things?

wanted to talk about that part, specifically for women. And them um having the sensations about their own sexuality, their own sensuality, owning it, feeling good about it. Even being able to show up for it, even within a monogamous relationship or marital couple. It's always associated with rigid thinking about I can't really enjoy it in that way. I have to act like it's not for me, and I'm just doing this for specially for women, for the person that I'm with, it's not for me because there's so much shame around that. To a point where it's now in the unconscious, like they don't even realize that they're stopping themselves from feeling their own sensuality this way. It's just I'm not a sexual person, I'm not into sex, I'm not into sensuality, and I wonder how much of that is true because it would it's normal to want to feel all of you, right? It's just part of who you are. And so this self-guarded guarding of those primary emotions, which sensuality is part of that, is also one of the constraints that comes up. Now behaviorally, you were we were talking about about perfectionism. There other ones, too, like interpersonal challenges. So they're emotional cutoffs, meaning if other people are drinking, I don't feel like I want to be around them. You can choose not to drink, but other people are drinking. I'm not a religious person anymore, but I'm just not comfortable being around people who in their same house are having a drink or two, right? So there's they they don't involve themselves proximal and emotional cutoff with expanding their circles of people because they cannot be accepting of what people do or talk about, and this intimacy and sexual dysfunction is a huge one of those things that comes up over and over again with couples, and if one one member at least has had a series of has grown up in in religious trauma, this area of complex trauma. Yeah, this is kind of the phrase that you use of like sort of like a purity culture kind of

Yes, yes. purity culture is so damaging, As far as like a podcast like ours though, when you cut yourself off from sensuality, when you cut yourself off, you're cutting yourself off from a whole life force actually. Yeah. From like a tantric point of view, you've cut yourself off from a whole life

you. It's part of like your your your spiritual growth in a way. It's it's part of you. So then another thing that you notice is that there's some sort of generalized anger. You don't really know what you're angry about. You don't know what is brewing underneath. But generalized anger challenged with the task of self-differentiation often then leading to like cultural cut-off like I cannot be part of this culture or I'll feel shame about that, right? Or demeaning of culture of origin because if I don't say all of, you know, Islam is bad or something or all Catholics or whatever the religion. If I don't say that's all bad and that's all crap, then I'm kind of owning that it's okay to have parts of this into my life and I'm not okay with it. So this generalized anger not only is for them, but it's also about other people and their choices of life and how they want to live. Okay, one Oh, sorry. One second. I want to I want to a 3-minute 3-minute sidebar debate but totally related. So we're talking about religious influence on society and the changes that occur individual and on a macro scale, right? that circumcision is uh male genital mutilation. It is. And I tell anybody and all of my patients and family members when they have boys, do not circumcise your child. People can certainly clean themselves. Cleanliness is not an issue. We have showers and so on and so forth. I said if if we were to talk about that as a on the on the female side, that would be considered outrageous. This whole country was upset when they learned about all the places they do that in Africa and how gross that is. And yet, it is still standard. Now, I have patients who, you know, fortunately I'm I'm, you know, can help them with fertility and they have children and so on and so forth. I'm like, the They're like, "Well, you know, they they give all the the lame reasons. You know, it's it looks better. It it's hard to clean." And I was like, "Okay, take it easy. We're we're smart people, okay? We can clean ourselves properly." And then what I what what I counter that to them, I said, "But the problem is is that when you do that, and this is where it ties in, it reduces sensation for men in particular. They say probably up to about 30%." And I said, "So, I believe that this decrease in sensation is intentional from a dogmatic religious perspective in order to make sex less pleasurable, number one. To make And And then number two, on the other side, it changes the way that you interact with sex because it is less pleasurable, you have to almost have more sensation to get the same amount of uh output, if you will. And I think it changes how how men interact with sexuality just in general. And so, given that we're talking about pleasure, religion, society, and the individual, I thought this fit right well here. And so, I wanted to open it up cuz this is a hot topic I like to talk about.

It's a very important topic. When I'm um working with couples in sex therapy, these type of types of things come up as well. Because you cannot get a good reason for what you just talked about, you know, like, "Why does this have to happen?" And the best they can come up with is uh cleanliness, which doesn't make any sense either. But these and then there's the other side of it where there are many religious cultures, religious cultures, that actually uh female circumcision age seven on is done so that they don't feel pleasure ever out of sex. And when I work with women who have had those kinds of incidences from childhood, which they're just one of millions, that's not they didn't know any other women that wasn't that way. It is so difficult to see because now we're talking about not only how does it affect the person, how does it affecting the relationships they get into. It often shows up in difficulty just trusting another person. And uh themselves in being able to uh lose control in a way. Or um some acts are okay and some acts aren't. Some people go as far as they have to go and read to see what their religion says is okay and isn't. For example, uh women during menstrual cycle not being able to even sleep on the same bed with you know, their husbands. Uh more or less engage in anything. But people, like we said, they struggle with intimacy, specially if closeness and specially if closeness and sexuality was heavily regarded or associated with shame, which we know it generally is for women in that way. They they may second-guess themselves constantly or feel like they're doing something wrong even in a safe relationship to just let go and be as adventurous as they want to be. And so the relational patterns of the system continues long after the system itself is not um physically present anymore. I remember when I was uh in my master's program and we had to do when we when we were learning about couples, we had to do um presentations on uh sex therapy presentations for, you know, some of our couples class and um the topic that I had was vaginismus and it was so hard for me to get up and talk about that even though I was, I don't know, 34 years old and like, you know, it wasn't like I was born yesterday, but I noticed that shame, that religious um indoctrination in me that as a woman, I'm standing here presenting on a sexual issue for women. That can't What does that mean about me? And I could hear the sound, you know, in my ear all the uh shame that was So, I had to do a lot of my own work to be able to work with people not even realizing this had affected me since I had came to the

even in your even in yourself that there was uh you know, uh uh Dr. Sahabi that there was this kind of like little bit of like lingering shame just about the female body overall that was so

Very much. Yes.

So, I had to sit there and I had to be uh present with it and be able to have discussions around it and and do a lot of what we call self of the therapist work to be able to look at ourselves and why am I not asking about the sexual relationship of couples when I'm seeing them? That's a huge part of this. Why is this not coming up? So, so I had to do a lot more work on learning how to work with couples and sexuality than anything else that's even harder around emotional connection and, you know, uh all of that because of the religious trauma that had impacted me without me realizing it. Just to double back on the anger thing of this real quick, and then I want to hear about this bog thing.

You brought up this word bog, which I don't know if I'm pronouncing that one right, but I you know, so it was one of the words that you brought up, so I'm curious about bog.

Me? Yeah, I think you sent me something about that Persian word. OH, OH, BOG. BOG. YES. OH, OKAY, SORRY. But

I got you.

On the anger thing, when that when you talk about that, that was ringing bells for me. I'm sure Daniel too.

it would, Eric. As like TCM people, you're like, "Ooh, this is a TCM traditional Chinese medicine thing, right?"

Uh there's a saying in Chinese medicine that says in adults treat the liver, you know, because the liver becomes associated with anger in Chinese medical thought. So, I was like, "Ding, ding, ding." But, you know, one of the things with that as you're describing it, it's almost like an anger that has so many different sources. Mhm. It'd be hard to pin it down to something in particular. There's just so many places that it has come from. And in my mind, I was imagining like you know, all the times when you had to like swallow that anger cuz you couldn't react to someone who was doing something oppressive. And over and over and over again, like the repetition of that being so deep as well as the kind of the other things you're talking about, too. Is that how you think about you know, the anger in that way? I do, but I take it one step further. So, what does it mean for trauma to become internalized? Because when we're talking about generalized anger in the way that you're talking about it, it's not something I'm noticing that I'm feeling. It's just like there's something brewing all the time. There's like a the world owes me kind of feeling, or everything is just upsetting me. So, think about it as it means the system doesn't end when you leave it, right? You're not around it, but it's still with you. We are as you know, we're meaning-making creatures. It's encoded in the brain. And where does it show up when it's encoded in the brain? The work that you do. In the body. So, the body is how it's expressed. So, the rules, the fear, the self-monitoring, all of that becomes part of how the person thinks and feels. So, even in a different environment, the same patterns continue internally. And in that sense, the system becomes psychological, not just external. And you know that I mean, you all always teach me about trusting the body, trusting your gut feeling. What is your body will know what it to do. How many times have I gotten um Scolded.

Yes, about like tell me, what are you doing? But it it's about trust your your body knows how to heal. So, that piece of it is because there is a mechanism of internalization with that generalized anger comes out when we know that our system doesn't believe, doesn't accept what it's what we're trying to do, what we think is the right thing to do. Because thinking, like I always tell my clients, don't trust what you're always thinking, you know? Don't don't believe what you think. Uh lean into it, become more curious about it. And I I think that part, that generalized anger is within the body. That's how it comes out. Well, so for this Persian word I was trying to like share

with the English speakers amongst us, b o g h z, perhaps. Yeah. You know, to try to render that. And it's a very deep word, so I thought it was like something that I wanted to bring up before our pod ended today cuz it seems to have so many different levels of meaning and I, you know, I was curious about it. I've written an article about this, and I I have yet to find a place where um outside of Substack where I think it's worthy of getting published. And this is a and I called the article Bolghase and the emotion behind um Iran's cycle of resistance. But it could be anybody's cycle of resistance. So Persians have a word for the um moment when emotion rises. Uh so suddenly the word uh words fail you. Like you have no way to explain explain it. And that's what Bolghase is. It's the throat tightening, the voice um catches, um tears gather, uh the feeling builds inside the body. There is a um pressing upward um accompanying, I would say, by an uneasy awareness that it's uh you want to break free from it. Something long held in place that may no longer be contained. And so anyone who has grown up in the Iranian culture, specifically, recognize this this feeling immediately because it appears in our poetry, in everyday conversations, and in the quiet pauses that follow very painful stories where we don't say anything after that. So Bolghase is what happens when emotions accumulate faster than it can be expressed. And when you're part of a culture where religious trauma has taken place, and you have to kind of uh for lack of better words, suck it up and uh hold your essence together, your ego together. You can't show how it's impacting you. And therefore it's an internal experience of self where you feel it through your throat about to burst and you're about to have this experience. I allow my books to break. I'm not ashamed of it, but for so long there was so much shame with letting somebody in front of me see the emotions that come out. And that also contributes to the aftermath of pathology of how much of that toxicity are you keeping within you? You're not allowing out. You know what I mean? I mean, I was like looking it up and, you know, I obviously there are words that you have that have such profundity in their native language that it's hard to capture, right? But you did get when I was looking up there was this idea that there's the surging of emotion and maybe the repressing of the emotion in some kind of conflict or something and the emotion wants to come out. Does that capture some of that feeling, too?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It it's just um it's brewing, it's shaking, you're putting the lid on it, and uh the tighter you try to hold it together, the harder it is to hold. Yeah. It's like um there Rumi has a uh a a specific line that I'll say in English. It's uh I carry words of your love in my heart that can never fit into speech. And I feel like that's what boughs is, right? I can't I just feel it. Can you feel it with me? Mhm. My job is to make people's boughs break in my sessions. And when we do, it's it's wonderful to see because you're just letting it all you're letting the grief, you're letting all that structure that you're holding, you know, fall because at the end of the day, who are we, right? We're just humans who are experiencing life. And these across generations, Iranians have always understood this kind of emotion. And as emotional as we are and relational we are, there's been this kind of we got to keep it together. There's a pride, there's a anger, there's a longing that we cannot that coexist that we we cannot show. I'm not very good at hiding it. I'm proud of that. It's kind of so in the back of your mind even when you're doing your clinical work that word flutters a little bit. Like, oh, I'm going to get people to express

it. I I take energy from the person and I see it in them and you you you see it in in their faces, the colors changing, you see a younger version of self kind of come into their faces and that's when I call it out right then and there. And I see that there's something there's a lump I feel, there's a bulge I feel in you. What is that about? And the minute they open their mouth, everything [snorts] just drops. And it's like one of those transcending concepts cuz it's not just [clears throat] limited to any people that this is human this is human at its core to have this. Yes, it is. Uh some of us grow up in cultures where we are free to express emotions and some of us who have had religious trauma backgrounds where religion has played played a role have to pull it together more and just follow a certain path. So, it is not okay to be yourself. You know, in in these last few minutes I I like to put a picture of what any of these experiences can look like for a child. And I'm going to use myself as a child. I hope that's okay. So, I can show you what, you know, bulge is that feeling of something caught in your throat. Like, what what could it look like? Why would it look like this? Would it be okay if I share my screen about this? Sure. We just have to describe it for those who are listening audio. Oh, yes. I I will I will do that. Thank you for pointing that out as well. So, if you are listening audio, you know, try and and catch the video at this point at some point if you're interested. Yes. So, let me share my screen. Oh, you probably won't be able to share your screen.

Yes. Yes.

Yes, I did and I won't be able to enable it because it takes quite some time. Oh, no. Yeah.

Fair enough. So, there there are pictures that I show of you know, how I was growing up in a culture where things were just fine. There was you know, you could be yourself. I'm playing snow with my mom, you know, I have a swim coach who is a guy and I'm 5 years old, 4 years old and I'm holding my medal and you know, my aunts are all around me and just you know, everybody's dressed how they want and out picnicking everybody's dressed how they want and my swim team being all girls and then all male staff and coaches behind us and this is in Iran. I wish I could show it to you. You would be very interested in seeing this. So, then within a matter of weeks things shifted into when the Ayatollah came to Iran and like our entire culture, the way of life continued completely shifted. And then you see pictures of me going to first grade, second grade, third grade, you know, completely covered not just with a hijab. To this day, I have a reaction when I see hijab even if the person is choosing to hijab. I I can feel the tension inside of me still sitting in me because you have to wear something that's like a hooded part and then a covered part and my head would itch and when I would complain about that then my dad would shave my head and say, "Well, now it won't itch anymore." Or we want to go by the beach together, you won't be able to go play in water and sand unless they think you're a boy. So, I always had to be a boy in public. So, this gender identity, gender dynamic for a young girl who actually grew up, you know, before the age of like by the age of four, five in like a very comfortable, you know, normal you're a girl and that's a beautiful thing and there's no difference to all of a sudden now you got to cover up, you got to look a certain way and this is all that's acceptable and even you can't even take it off during class and it doesn't matter how much rashes you get and it's it's easy for me to talk about this now, but even when I bring it up to other Iranians because they were so used to it for so long, they don't have the same feeling as I do because they may have had those feelings as children, but they grew used to it over time and they can't associate with how difficult this was for me. And so, being able to see somebody go through these kind of shifts and changes and what it's like for a little girl cuz I'm only talking about me to be able to be put under a certain kind of veil, you that is you're not okay unless you're high hidden behind certain thing things about you are shameful just because they are even though you're seven because our religion says so was a very difficult thing to swallow and I was not a very pleasant kid who didn't have a lot of questions. So, I always had to poke the bear of like, "Why? Why? Why?" I was constant I still am that kind of person which actually made grown-ups more angry because they didn't have answers to it and it's always like, "Because this is what God likes." That was the nicest answers I would get. It's kind of like the circumcision thing Daniel was bringing up. Why? Well, that's what God wants.

So, imagine if you're growing up in that and at some point well, maybe a lot of people aren't like me. They just accept it because they want to please, you know, the growing-ups or, you know, get a good grade on the way that they're dressed because you get graded in Iran. I mean, it's done how you're dressed. Uh it's called Enzebat. It's crazy. But to be able to accept it for what it is or not accept it like me and then live in that and then see outside. When we moved to Sweden before we moved here and all the beaches there were nude. So, like 2 days before we were in Iran and it was like, you're dressed like this. We go to Sweden and everybody's nude on the beaches. It's very, very difficult for a 8-year-old child and my brother being 4 to be like, what what is real in this world? Like, are they all going to hell? Like, what's happening? Am I So, imagine this kind of dichotomy, this oscillation. And how do you work through that? Sometimes you don't. You just see it show up in different ways in your life, whether it's in your relationships. We talked about sexuality and intimacy, whether it's in your parenting style or just the way that you exist in the world among friends and allow external events to be part of your life. It's a very difficult thing to do. Well, thank you for sharing that, doctor. I felt my own like vogues like coming up as you were describing it cuz it's very it's one of those things you talk about so many things, but just that experience of a girl going through that, you know, is so symbolic of something, right? It has a it has an overarching I don't know, cinematic literary quality just to see that moment of like what that would be like, you know? So, I'll tell you what. The Western world does not have an appreciation Yes. for the subjugation of women in those cultures until they hear stories like that or they see it for themselves. And Yes.

it's different there. And and I could say, you know, when I when I was in Iraq, um I would watch these women because, you know, much like much of the rest of the world, there's still multiple layers of history happening. So, you'll have cars on one There's you have a three-lane freeway, but it'll be five lanes of traffic with three lanes of cars, one lane of like donkey-drawn carriages, and then one other lane of people walking, maybe with a cart or something else like this. We don't really have that here in most, you know, first world or westernized cultures. But, in those cultures, they still do because the have-nots far outnumber the haves, for sure, and it's not even close. But, to see these women carrying water, carrying stuff back from the market in the middle of summer, in the absolute deserts, you know, like like in in Iraq, completely covered in black, carrying stuff with their kid Like, I know I mean, I was hot. And I knew that like I wasn't here forever. They live in that heat. Like, that's that's all that they know. It's all that they have. And you look at it, you're like, that's black in the sun. At 2:00 p.m., blazing, 115°. You know, that has got to be just just from a humanitarian, you know, that's insanely difficult to to think about that they are going to have to live their life in that way. But, we don't have an appreciation. This culture doesn't have an appreciate The West does not The West in particular, the United States, does not have appreciation for this. I feel like if we had more interactions with these kinds of stories, it would change at least some people's minds on the the difficulties that much of the these parts of the world have to endure and and we would have a far more compassionate stance towards them than than we do now just pointing the finger at them is like them bad. You know what I'm saying? I remember there was absolutely. I remember there was a girl who would tell me the only thing she wishes from life is that she can ride a bicycle, illegal by the way for a girl to do, and feel her hair in the wind. That's it. That was her life dream. Can you imagine? Or when I was you know, my my family wasn't religious or if they people who were religions they were to themselves, you know, it wasn't anything that was publicized, you know, they prayed as they wanted to. But it wasn't about how you dress and all these external ways to kind of show who you are. So there used to be you know, men and women in together in weddings. And then when the Islamic Republic came, you couldn't have weddings with men men and women in it. But you know, people would anyway and when they would come and take people, they would take the women. And I remember this story as a kid where a bunch of my family members were taken to jail, the women were. They were taken to jail to rub off the uh nail polish that they had with um they gave them um sugar sugar cubes to rub it off all night. They said, "By the time you are able to rub this off, then we'll let you go." So we don't sit like you said, the Western cultures don't sit and really sit with these kind they don't know these stories that we carry. And this is all part of to this day that religious trauma's with me because when I see women under the same conditions right here, I have a reaction. And it's not because I don't respect what their belief is, but I have a very hard time believing that it is really their choice to be able to have that. So, thank you for letting me share that with you. I actually send you those two slides of the pictures. So, if you wanted to put it in the back of this when you upload, you can for the um people to see. Thank you for sharing all that. Part of what you're trying to get to, uh you know, uh Dr. Sahebi, is this idea of like there's an international quality behind this in a way to recognize this as being like, you know, cuz you've talked about this before in things where I've listened to you. You're getting to this idea of like there has to be, even if you talk about something like feminism, there has to be an understanding this has to be international in its scope. Yes. Right? Wherever you see this [clears throat] problem, it has to be called out. Our Our podcast is called Jin and Ton Tra. There's no Ton Tra unless you have a quality of everyone, right? It has to be like that. And, you know, that's a maybe that's a framing that like, you know, can have a universalism around it, right? But, we get we get this wrong many times. We get lost in believing that uh because we have to respect the differences, therefore we cannot talk about Right. equality. And then we we just hide behind it. You know, I I I'm as a person who is a progressive left, I have a lot of things to criticize us regarding you know, looking at diversity in a way that is not feminist-oriented. You know, that is looking past that because it's uh inclusivity hasn't been understood as what it's supposed to be. And I think Iranians are a perfect right now in this zeitgeist being able to see friction between the Islamic Republic and what is Islam and who are Iranians and who we're trying to show is a perfect depiction of how all of these things are interplayed and trying to just be heard about this. So, thank you very much for providing a platform for me to talk about some of the experiences of what Iranians go through. Well, thank you for sharing and um you know, for coming on and and talking about all the things. You know, we're glad to we're glad to have you on and and we'll be happy to have you back. Um Eric, as always, thank you so much for for driving the boat, driving the ship. Audience, thank you so much for tuning in. You know, as we know, this is a labor of love for us. So, we appreciate everybody who comes on and and sharing their stories with us. We we know we hope that this is able to spark some conversations and you know, light the light the fire of wisdom, you know, and hope that that helps to kind of open some people's eyes to things they might not have had of or heard before thought about before. So, we thank you everybody for tuning in. Like, comment, subscribe, leave a comment. If you want to, hit us up or you want to get a hold of Dr. Sabaebi to learn more about her work or you know, maybe even work with her. I know her schedule is super busy, but you know, she'll find some time for you if if the if the stars might align for more time. Oh, no. You know, but you know, feel free to hit us up at gin and tantra at gmail.com or leave a comment in the YouTube section. I'll I'll be sure to check it or hit us up on the gram at the gin and tantra podcast. For Eric and Mahara, this is Daniel. We'll catch you guys in the next one. Peace.