Welcome to Between the Threads, a podcast exploring the threads that connect us, story, memory, identity, and meaning, and how they weave the fabric of peace in our lives and communities. Between the Threads is a joint initiative between Kahanee and Narratives. Kahanee is a nonprofit organization that amplifies storytelling for peace building, and Narratives is an award-winning planning and design firm based in Winnipeg, Canada. Welcome to today's episode of Between the Threads. we have Dr. Rehman Abdulrehman who is a clinical and consulting psychologist, bestselling author and assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. His work helps individuals and organizations move from good intentions to meaningful practice when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion. A TEDx speaker and nationally recognized DEI consultant, he has worked with organizations including Google, the MasterCard Foundation, and CBC. He is the founder and clinical director of Clinic Psychology Manitoba. Tell us about your name. Yeah. place to start. Yeah. It's a big question. um Yeah. It's interesting because that's often the big question and you don't always want to have to explain your name to every single stranger, but everybody wants to know why is your first name and your last name and is it Rehman? Is it Rehman? know, but then everybody calls you Abdulrehman. So what's going on with you? It's interesting how like, I would say a narrative, a collective narrative, one that we adopt is normal in our society, has a huge impact on our identity, even right down to our name. So, you know, I was named Abdulrehman after my great grandfather. but then my other, sorry, I was named Abdulrehman after my great great grandfather. My great grandfather had said, No, take it back. We'll start over. I was like, it's two great-grandfathers. Was it two or three? So, yes. So I was named Abdulrehman after my great-grandfather. And he had since passed. And my other great-grandfather had said he wanted to shorten the name. He said, it's, know, Abdulrehman is too old fashioned. We should shorten it. You know, we grew up in a colonized country. And so it was Rehman. A Rehman was never Rehman And it's not even culturally appropriate to call somebody a Rehman. it was Rehman. I went to British schools and it was Rehman the whole time. And it got anglicized since I was a child. But everybody at home, anybody who knew me well, anybody who could pronounce it was Abdulrehman. And so I go by either Rehman, which is what I was used to. Rehman is not really appropriate Islamically. That makes sense. Because it's meant to be an attribute of God. So it's Abdulrehman, name, like, it either the anglicized that or Abdulrehman. Okay, well that's helpful to know. So you are not being called Rehman. It's either Rehman. Rehman or Abdulrehman. Okay, beautiful. So what was Abdulrehman like growing up? Yeah, what was I like growing up? I feel like we should be asking your parents that question. Yeah, I think you could. um I probably will next time I come to the store. Yeah, next time. Yeah, what was I like? I mean, there was me as a kid in Dar es Salaam. You know, I immigrated to Canada with my family when I was seven. And so it's almost like there was two different people. And me growing up was, I mean, I remember self being carefree and happy. uh You know, it didn't feel like there were problems. uh And then when we, you know, I was looking forward to immigrating to Canada, you know, is what we saw in the books that I had read when I was a kid, you know, children playing in the snow, rosy cheeks. It felt like a fairy tale to be able to move to Canada. And so we did. And it was interesting. Right? Life then was a little bit different. I mean, I think I had a happy childhood, but it was interesting because there was more memory of challenges and the challenges came with, you know, being new here. And it's interesting because I don't think of myself as a newcomer. I don't think of myself as an immigrant. I did immigrate at one point in time, but I've lived here my entirety of my, the majority of my life. And so I don't see myself as that. But there was this experience of being... I mean, even as a kid, I never saw myself as an immigrant. I was like, I live in Canada. This is where I am. This is my neighborhood. This is my school. And so to be treated like an outsider repeatedly, aggressively, starts to weigh. And so I think by the time I was in grade five or six, I remember being very shy. I'm pretty sure, environment does impact. And what we think about people impacts how we treat them and who they become and therefore that impacts health and well-being. So I remember being very shy and unable to speak up for myself. And all of a sudden I wasn't treated very well. And I became the outsider, you know, the brown kid. And then it wasn't so great for a little while. And then I was bullied. uh And then you kind of learn to grow into yourself. Right. And that takes time. And you go through this challenge and this development, so to speak, because how do you become who you are? When I really was who I was, how do you re-become who you are in this new place, despite what people say about you? Yeah, that's beautiful. It reminds me of when I think about my own journey coming to Canada. I was a very confident person growing up. You you put me on stage, doesn't matter how many people were standing there. I could sing, could, ah a lot of where my brothers played cricket and soccer and basketball, for me, it was debate club, singing and oration. And there was no lack of confidence. And yet when I came to Canada, it changed. It's all of a sudden. you start questioning, I don't belong like has, has everything that I've been taught about myself leading up to that point, not true. Right. And you almost have to rediscover yourself in a lot of ways. It is very true. And, and you have to realign yourself with the stories told about you. Right. Cause like you have this idea of who you are and your story is kind of integrated into who you are. mean, it's just a part of your experience. Anybody who has grown up. locally, we'll say, this is my experience, this is who I am. But when you're a person of color and when you're an immigrant, you become at odds with your identity of who you are because who you are and who people say you are are usually two different things. And it's like this continuous gaslighting that I think people of color have to face where they recognize, wait, that's not me. How can you keep saying that about me? How can you keep saying that about me? And there are many people who will internalize that. Most of us will internalize that to some degree. But then to be healthy, you have to kind of challenge that. And so there's this ongoing struggle, this ongoing battle to reconcile your version of who you are with somebody else's version of who you are and the stories that they tell about you and the stories that you know about yourself. I imagine at least the hope for myself. to get to a point in life where someone else's version of me doesn't matter to me anymore. Yeah, I don't think that's ever gonna happen. Like, mean, psychologically... You just burst my bubble. I was imagining it happen someday. I think we teeter. Like, I think we have moments of it where you're like, I'm with who I am. And then you face some racism and you get tipped off. where you thought you were comfortable. And I think as long as we wear the skin, as long as we possess a culture, a faith that doesn't fit with the stories that other people say about us, we're constantly at odds. And I talk about that in my writing about developing uh cultural identity, ethnic and cultural identity development. And I think that's what many of us as people of color have to struggle with. That the moment we're born into this society, we're at odds with ourselves. When we immigrate here, particularly people who immigrate later, you know, it's comfortable at the beginning because you're used to being an outsider. Your identity is not local. You know, it's just like, well, of course I'm different. And so you, you tolerate more of that abuse and that racism because the story about you fits. Well, I am not from here. Sure. Right. Okay. Well, that makes sense. I'm, I've got to learn the culture and, but the longer you're here, the more your identity becomes local. And that's when you start to become at odds with yourself. Because you're like, wait a second, this is not me. How long have I been here? How much do I need to contribute to feel like I'm a part of this society? what point is it? Is it enough? And so I feel like people who immigrate later in life are more tolerant of racism. interesting. Because they have to accept it. Well, we're not from here. This is not our country, so to speak, versus those of us who grew up here, people of color who grew up here, who immigrated earlier. That's not a part of their sense of identity. And research will confirm that generally people who, for example, with Muslims, 93 % of people identify as Canadian, right? They don't identify as foreigners. So they have no other way of being a Muslim than other than being Canadian. And those two are overlapped. And it may not be the experience for other people, but it certainly is our experience. That's incredible. How you touched a little bit on your writing. I'd love to hear more about what inspired and you've been writing a lot lately. Probably a little too much lately. ah Curious on how you find that balance and hours in the day to do that. But tell me what inspired the work that you do and maybe... Tell us a little bit about your work. So I used to write poetry since I was about 18, 19. And that's been a part of my life for a very long time. But I never really, you know, I've been published here and there. I won a short story contest, which is actually that story made it into my newest book. but it's, but I never really thought I would write a book, particularly I just thought, oh, you know, there's a nice little opportunity, small little things. And then, mean, really what made me write this book ah was just a colleague who's like, ah who's an editor for a series with a publisher, Hagrefa. And he's like, I need you to write this book. It's time for you to write this book. And I was like, no. You know, a few years before that, colleague had said, you know, if you want to be an expert in the area, it's time that you write a book. And I'm never writing a book. Never. ah And then... within two years. It was just waiting. It was weird. was weird. I and I think that goes back to the stories we say about ourselves, right? Like in my head, was like, you know, I write poetry, but I'm not a poet. You know, I write stories, but I'm not a writer. You know, I tell stories, but I'm not a storyteller. Right? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'm not that. Right. And it was like, it's almost like And psychologically, the behavior takes over our emotions and our thinking, right? And so it's almost like the behavior of writing a book was like, then I could write this book. And then people are like, well, I need you to write that book. And I was like, okay, I could write that book. Right. then it's like, so your identity shifts through behavior. But if your identity is consistently challenged, how does your behavior change? Yeah. I'm thinking of how, when I was writing Gajira, at one point, I was speaking to my publicist and she said, you need to update your LinkedIn tags to say writer. And I said, yeah, but I'm not a writer. The book isn't published yet. She said, you've been writing since you were eight years old. You are a writer and the book is coming out. So if you need that as a milestone to be able to call yourself a writer, do it now. Now's the time. So we were reflecting a little bit on what kinds of questions we would ask you. And one of the ones that really came up for us, we'd love to, you do a lot of work in stories. You are an incredible storyteller yourself. We'd love to hear a little bit about the science behind stories. Like what makes stories such a potent mechanism or mode for healing? Well, stories can exist, but if they're not in our ethos, if they're not adopted, then they make no change. uh Stories are relevant and important, but they need space and they need to be publicized and people need to read them because then they start to influence culture. If you think about our culture now, let's think about Canadian culture, North American culture, there are stories that influence identity. Think about the story of being multicultural. It doesn't matter how untrue that is. we've internalized that story because it is told, it is publicized, we talk about it all the time, we wave a flag about it. And what it does is actually silences the actual story that people like you and I face, where actually the experience is not one of multiculturalism, it is actually quite racist. We have hate crimes that have gone up 1300 % for Muslims in the past couple of years, documented. so that's a juxtaposition to the story that's being told. And so stories are very powerful if they are told, if they are accepted, because we ultimately believe those. Those stories shift our thinking, they shift our emotion, and ultimately they shift our behavior. And so correcting the story is critical. hear a certain story told by someone else, a huge part of my own journey would be how do I tell my stories? And then finally I have the courage to tell my story and it works. Would I not as a storyteller want to honor the story that's told to me as the true story because it's someone else's true version of the story? Right. So it doesn't leave room for correction in that exchange then? You know, there's a concept in psychology called regression towards the mean. Like we all push back towards, like we all ultimately move back to an average, you know, so we can have these outliers that tell a story one way the other. But the more stories that are told, the more likely we come to a median. you know, kind of like an average. Yeah, that makes sense. And it's important. So it's important when we have stories that we just don't have a single story, that we have multiple stories. Yeah. And the correction doesn't happen. It's not a correction. These are the ranges of experiences. And we kind of recognize that there's commonalities in those experiences. And yes, there may be variation, but here's the overlap. Right. the dilemma. And the dilemma with stories of people of color is that we tend to only get exaggerated versions of a story. We tend to get stereotypical stories. You know, whereas with white people, the stories vary. We have so many different kinds of stories of white people. And as a result, we understand white people to be varied. We understand white people to be human. Well, humanity has this variation. Whereas with people of color, the stories tend to be singular. You know? We are victims, Muslim women, women of color, they're victims. know, men of color, particularly Muslim and Arab men, they're terrorists and abusers. And so we only get a single version of that story and we're not allowed any room. And popular culture only allows in the stereotypes that they feel that would fit with their view of who we are. We are not telling our stories. And as a result of that, There's no correction. We are not seen as human. Because we're not seen with the same variability, with the same variation of those experiences. And to me, what stands out when I hear you talk about that is it's so important for us to be telling our stories. It is important, but what's also important, I think what happens is the onus gets placed on the victim. We have to tell our stories. Well, I'm like, but... Are we allowed to tell our stories? people listening to our stories? Yeah. You know, is this what's picked up by popular media? You know, we know very well that certain stories were banned over the past several years. You you couldn't talk about Palestine. You couldn't talk about anti-Palestinian racism. You couldn't talk about Islamophobia because we know that the popular media was actually suppressing it. There's actually documented articles that will say that this is what popular media was doing. how? Right. I mean, remember that the narrative about Arabs and Muslims, I'll use our communities as an example, was that we're terrorists. And that story, that narrative is used to justify harm against our people. And as a result, it makes everybody turn a blind eye. And then when we do try to tell our stories, you're a terrorist sympathizer, or we're just going to block you out. And all the work that you do gets cut out. I mean, frankly, I'll be honest, this happened to me. As of October 7th, 2023, know, I was certain media groups darling. And then the moment this hit, off. Nothing, nothing. They don't want anything. You'd the expert on anything. They'd rather talk about, you know, a dog that looked like Jesus, you know, that shows up and they mean, oh, look at that. I saw Jesus's image in the toggle. Let's talk about that. You know, rather than the actual news, the real stories that those of us are actually facing want to talk about. So it isn't... isn't just about telling stories. It is what we do together as a community. Do we have gatekeepers for these stories? And yes, we do. And it's the reason why, and you know this, I've started a publishing house called the Lead with Diversity Press. And the reason being is because as an author, as a publisher, I've published scientifically, I've published academically. I know that many authors of color, I know scientists of color, are not allowed in the publishing space and a story. And when we are, we're gate-kept. We're gonna change this, change that. This is an academic methodology doesn't fit. It's too diverse. Too diverse. Forget that. Let's just talk about science. This is scientific article. You've got references. You've got data. You can't say that. You can't say this. You can't say this. And so you've got reviewers who are perpetuating, scientists, scholars, who are perpetuating stereotypes and gatekeeping us, right? And so the question is, say we want to invite more people to the table. And at some point in time, you're like, do we just build our own table? Yeah. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I hope that we can have a diverse table where people get invited. But I'm not sure we're at that point, you know, where we do have a diverse table. We do have places where that can exist. You know, I'm thankful to have a publisher who publishes my work, you know, and that's good. But there are places where many people are not published and our stories are not heard. And it takes... For someone who is trying to publish for the first time, you're already overwhelmed by the process. You are terrified of that vulnerability that you are about to exercise, but even putting your story out there in the world. So that in itself is a huge mountain and then you have these additional barriers. And similarly, I've been asked to sanitize my story for publication in scientific journals where you're about to make a recommendation, oh, that's too strong. Well, we've actually, I've asked you to publish for a journal that I was the editor for. And I know that there were some challenges. I actually had to fight. I remember that. had to fight with the other co-editors and the senior editors and they didn't want to include things that felt uncomfortable. I was like, this is the data. We've got scholars submitting information. This is a special edition for Arabs and South Asians. this is typically the case, sadly. So what do we... my gosh, there's such a long list of things that we can do to build more spaces, but I'd love to hear about some of the writing that you've done in this arena over the last little while. Let's start with Teapot. Teapot, right. So uh my writing has, I have a ton of academic articles that I write about racism, bias and things like that. So those exist. Actual books, I've got, I've got a publisher, Agrefah, who does my academic publishing. And then I've started something called Lead with Diversity Press. And that's a press exclusively for authors of color. And Teapot was the first anthology of poetry to publish as many authors or poets of color as we could. And so in Teapot, the poetry of angry, it's... Teapot is short for the Poetry of Terrorists, which is the... But the actual name is the poetry of angry black and brown people. uh And just this last fall, we published an anthology with 41 authors of color, some of them who are very well established, some of them who are new, and rather than censoring them, you know, we just helped them become publishable. And was very proud to put out this really beautiful anthology of really powerful work. And that's Teapot. That's Teapot. uh Walk us through the switch from using the word terrorist on the book to how it's now described. And if you could describe it for those who might not actually see the cover, actually describe it. Well, the original call for submissions went out as the poetry of terrorists and other angry black and brown people. And the idea was really about challenging that stereotype with poetry. You know, because people tend to see people like you and I, people of color, who dissent, who ask for their rights as people who challenge Western values and people who are terrorists. How do you do that with poetry? Right? I mean, like, we write poetry. know? I mean, some of the best poetry originated, you know, in Eastern lands. So, let's talk about that. And so, there... There is an actual like forward that I wrote that actually breaks down and talks about the terrorist and how our writing kind of challenges that. And the whole concept is people were meant to look beyond the cover. If you look beyond the cover of that very frightening word, you actually get to see us for who we are. The whole book is a metaphor for that. But the word, you know, the word terrorist scared so many people that we decided to use it in artwork only. And so the book actually has the word terrorist censored. It's there. It's there's art. And the poetry of, terrorists are censored and others crossed out, angry black and brown people. And people have trouble with the word angry black and brown people. I mean, we're angry. We're to be angry. It's a normal human emotion. It's very normal. And if we can't even be angry, then there's no room for... Right. But the anthology has a broad range of poetry and prose. There's fantasy, there's fiction, there's... love poetry, know, there's ideas of sexuality, there's, and then there's anger too, which is legitimate. And so like most writing does, it covers this broad range of the human experience, which I'm really proud to have put out there. We have a second edition hopefully coming out later this year. We'll have a call for submissions. So more to come. Amazing. Amazing. So for anyone who hasn't seen it, we'll include all this information, the show notes for folks to check out. incredible work. I'll just mention I have three poems in that book as well. Beautiful poems. And that was one of the things that really stood out for me was one, was just so beautiful to know that there's 40 other people in this circle of us, whatever that means, right? And to also see, actually, I'm going to back up here because One of the things that happened when I was thinking about what poems I want to send in, I thought, well, this is an opportunity to share ah the story in a manner that people understand, that people get. There was so much pressure to make sure I picked the right poem, but it was all like self-induced pressure. And I remember when I sent the poems and then eventually when I met some of the other poets, I thought there could have been other poems that I could have sent. That didn't have the anger or the rage or some of the other normal human experiences. So there also is this pressure to help the world understand what we endure. yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts a little bit about that and where that sort of comes from. It gets exhausting. It's exhausting. Why do I have to carry this pressure? But the reality is that in order for us to have a sense of safety, it's almost like we're bound to have to explain. I can tell you the book at the Toronto launch, it was such a nice gathering. They had this small bookstore. It was standing room only. And there was just a good vibe. People were just so happy to read their works and for people to hear their works. And there was some... Really powerful readers. Like it's one thing to have your poetry, like to read poetry and then to have it read by the poet. Like it's another ballgame. But it's interesting because a week before I was actually in Toronto for this launch, I found out that the bookstore that was launching this, who had actually links with, you know, school boards in Toronto and was a supplier to books in Toronto. had a group chat leaked to them to say that because of this book, because that word terrorist showed up in the art, that they were getting doxxed. And there was a risk of them losing that contract. And so it just goes to show that we can't even be artistic. Like even our art is governed by the stories of how people see us. Like it's ridiculous, right? It is. um Yeah. Yeah, it is. And I only became a Canadian citizen in 2015. and been in Canada since like 2002. And I distinctly remember when someone asked me, what's the first thing you're going to do now that you're Canadian? I said, I'm going to order all the books that I haven't for the last many, many years because I was afraid of ordering any book on terrorism. And here I am, I study that human behavior. I study the pathways to radicalization. And I was afraid. that there would be a book in my mailbox with that word and all of a sudden I'll become that person or that entity. Yeah, that's true. So um looking at, I want to come back to some of your writing and one of your latest pieces is Gin and the Family. I'd love to hear what inspired writing Gin and the Family. Gin and the Family is my novel. It's my favorite book that I've written. um I have a very warm attachment to the book uh for many reasons. uh I started writing this book as an homage to some of the women in my family, some of the matriarchs. uh And it was a book, initially started to be short stories that were tied to some of the folklore. So wasn't fully like accurate, but it's the folklore around certain women. um We have women in our family that were considered witches. And so, you know, obviously there's going to be some folklore around them. And then I'd put it aside. know, these short stories how long ago was that that you started? I was 21 when I, 2021 when I first started it. And, you know, I turned 50 last year and I was like, I got to do this. and for many reasons, but you know, you take your writing when you were 20 versus much older, you're like, well, I guess I got to erase all of this. Start from scratch. So. starting from scratch pretty much. The book was an interesting thing because I have a TEDx talk out called, but where are you really from? Resolving unconscious bias. And there's this big question about where are you from? But I'll be like, well. But still, where are you from? Right, I'm from Zanzibar. But where your parents from? Zanzibar. But where are their parents from? Zanzibar. But Zanzibar is in Africa, yes. But you're not black, yes. It's just like, and so it was, was tiring and it was almost like, it's not like I felt like I owed this to anybody, but I felt like Jin and the family actually answers that question finally, you know, actually talks about Zanzibar. It's got the history and it's got, it's a fiction book that has, that's based on real people. That's based on folklore and some real experiences that I've had, cause I used to teach in three universities in Tanzania and Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar. for about 10 years. And so I used to go there and I used to teach and I used to help develop programs. And I did that for about 10 years. And so over that time, you know, it's interesting where you get to learn a lot about, you know, the intersection between culture and mental health and folklore. I got to put all of that into this book. And so it is a fiction book, but I think the fun part is most people who read it was like, but it But it sounds real. So what's real and what's fiction? And the fun part is, you know, having people try to figure out what's real and what's fiction. That's been one of my favorite things about Gadjadah is when people ask me, is Iman you? Yeah. I was like, we'll leave that for you to answer. So um before I go deeper into, there's a few stories here that really... spoke to me that I'd love to ask you about. I want to first ask you about the illustrations. So these are haunting, is the word that comes up for me. And particularly one of the illustrations that always speaks to me is of this woman and you can just see her eyes and she's sort of floating. But tell us a little bit about why the illustrations and what, yeah, why? Yeah. um I I love the arts. em I used to do, like I used to be an artist in my old life. um But I needed somebody who did this, you know, well and as their profession. And so I hired an artist by, he goes by the moniker Inker Clark. um And he's an incredible ink artist, right? he just did it. And I needed, so I had gone through several artists to determine who was best able to capture. you know, what's happening in the text. And I gave Inker Clark some pieces of the book. And I said, without any background, just draw what you read. And the first the first one is actually right on the cover, right? His right. And he got it perfectly. Right. And I was like, this is the guy. Yeah. Right. This this is the person who actually gets what's happening. can. Whereas not everybody would. do that. And so he was able to read the book and translate it into what he would assume it was visually. And he and I worked together to go back and forth to make sure that it had strong elements of culture and identity woven in and that it did have a haunting feel Tied to the idea of haunting. love talking about gin. I love gin. Tell me more. Where does that come from? So, um most people don't know this, but Zanzibar is one of the most haunted places on Earth. Most people think it's Venice, and Venice has a very interesting history, but Zanzibar is probably one of the most haunted places. Can you tell me first what you mean by haunted? Because that in itself can mean different things to different people. Absolutely. Most people in Western culture when they talk about hauntings, they're thinking about ghosts. But according to Islamic tradition, according to Islam, once you're dead, you're dead. You don't come back. You don't come back as a spirit. You don't come as a ghost. But the hauntings don't come from the spirits of human beings. The hauntings come from a whole other being. so according to Islamic theology, uh the concept of elements show up in the story of creation. so, prior to humankind being created, you know, there were angels and they were created out of a white light. And then there were the jinn, who were the beings that were created out of a smokeless fire. And then there was humankind that was created out of earth, like carbon-based light forms. And so, whereas angels are always following what they're told by God, like they cannot go against it. uh Jinn and humankind are actually here with free will. so according to Islamic theology, the jinn, which most people would know as genies, And the word genie comes from the Arabic word jinni, which is a singular powerful jinn, typically from the branch of the jinn they call the ifrit. um And so there's these jinn. And so in Islamic culture, our ghost stories aren't really the ghosts of the dead. They are encounters with the jinn. Right. I loved coming to your book launch and having so many conversations with fellow Muslims who felt so seen. because we don't usually talk about djinn because people are gonna think we're either schizophrenic or we'll think we're a little... Yeah, well, it's not... I mean, the book talks about this concept of identity that... And I think in the book, djinn and the family, this concept of the djinn is not just a literal sense of the djinn, but it's a metaphor for what we do with culture. Like if we present our true cultural identity, our beliefs, then that doesn't fit with Western ideology. We're not scientific, we're not Western, we're not modern. And so we pack away elements of our culture just to fit in. And literally and figuratively, the stories of the jinn are exactly like that. know, like people don't know this, but there's a whole chapter in the Quran called Surat al-Jinn. The whole chapter is dedicated to the jinn. And so for Muslims, it's equally as important to believe in many aspects of the unseen as it is to the seen. And so we believe that God is unseen, the angels are unseen, but the jinn are also unseen. so, you know... Sometimes though. Sometimes. Yes, sometimes. And you touch on that a little bit. I do touch on it. I touch on it a lot. The whole book is about that. You know, the other piece, and you touched on this just briefly, with this intersection between, and I don't know how to frame this question, but this intersection between what is real, what is science, and all those sound like very polarizing terms as I frame the question. But how do you, where do you, how do you unpack all that? Like what is metaphorical versus what is literal? What's real? What's culture? And what do we accept as true? m This is particularly important when it comes to health. I'm a clinical psychologist, so uh I work with people who can have mental illness, right? From milder mental illness like anxiety and depression, which can be quite severe, to more severe problems like psychosis and mania, where people will think that they see things that don't exist or hear things that aren't there. And there have been some very interesting stories. I remember here, forget abroad. um There was a story, I worked with a young man who was up from an indigenous community in the north and he used to come to see me and this person had body dysmorphia. So everything was related to body dysmorphia. That showed up quite clinically and was disrupting their life. um But they told me a story. And the story was that, you know, growing up, ah there was many occasions where the cupboards in their house would open and close violently and things were flying around and they and their siblings had to hide under the bed. Now this person had zero, zero signs of psychosis, nothing else fit. So in order to have a diagnosis, you need a cluster of symptoms. So can't just be like, you know, I feel anxious. You have an anxiety disorder. No, we all have anxiety, but to have an anxiety disorder, you need a cluster of symptoms that create a picture, a diagnostic picture of an illness. So we look for patterns. No other patterns. What do do with this? Actually, you and I worked together with an Indigenous community, doing some interviews with an Indigenous community. And there was one story where an Indigenous woman talked about how she was driving home. And actually, this story with her concept has made it into the book. She's driving home and she saw, the story is slightly adjusted in the book, but she saw a bright light show up. And, you know, in her mind, there was aliens. Right. And she said, and then she, said, bright light pulled her up and out of the car, out of the truck. And then she doesn't remember anything and woke up in her daughter's driveway. You know, it has a huge block of memory. And so did this woman, I mean, we interviewed her. So I went through a diagnostic interview to determine whether she had any illness, because we had to determine whether these people had trauma. She might have had some trauma, but this belief was just out, it was like an outlier. So what do we do with these things? ah And if we approach this from a Western context, one could easily run with those things and say, well, we have a false diagnosis of what people are going through. And so naturally also, uh when I would go back to do my work in Tanzania, both in Dar es Salaam and in Zanzibar, I'd have these experiences. And there were times where where it was a false positive. I'll give you an example. ah There was a family who found out that I was working there. And while I was in Zanzibar, I was teaching there, they were trying to find me they couldn't. So I'd come back to the mainland and they showed up at the place that I was staying at 10 PM at night. m And they said, we've been trying to catch you at 10 PM at night. Now, culturally you're like, I can't turn these people away. It's not clinically appropriate here. Culturally, you want to make sure there's some tea. Right, right. So, I mean, it wasn't there alone. They came in and the family brought their son. And they said, we think our son is possessed. But everyone's saying, you know, that he has schizophrenia. And I mean, young man had schizophrenia. know, like it was full on full on through on through every diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia. Right. And I can understand for the mom. And I was like, well, have you been? They went to go see psychiatrist on the island. That psychiatrist said, son has schizophrenia. Here's a medication. They didn't start him on the medication. um But they took him to traditional healers. Traditional healers said, he is possessed. And the mom, feeling like somehow me coming from the West gave me credibility compared to the actual professionals who were working there. I said, well, he does have schizophrenia. hate to tell you this and I think you should start the medication. How come you haven't started it? And it was easier for this mom to believe that he was possessed because if he was possessed, the prognosis was quicker and faster. He could go to a traditional healer. He could be freed of the djinn that was possessing him and everything would be okay. Whereas a prognosis for schizophrenia was not always so good. It was very long-term. So was like she was holding on to hope. And you could see here there's an intersection where what we're told... And what's false, what's true, you know, it's not accurate. But we almost, we almost want to, you know, when you said earlier about this idea that when people ask you where you're from and how you respond to that, and you said that it's in the book, my first thought was like, shoot, was it? Because I totally missed this part. And I was going to have been sort of wondering about that. When someone reads this book, Part of what's incredibly fascinating is those stories of, I don't know what else to call them right now, but these anomalies of what we believe could be true. And in particular, one of the stories that stands out is of this woman who had needles coming out of her forearm. Right. So I worked at a hospital in Zanzibar. Interestingly enough, was an inpatient unit for people who were very severely mentally ill. And so we're talking about psychosis, schizophrenia. And actually one of the sultans, like one of the princes of Zanzibar actually had his own room at this. It was a very historical institution. And so I worked with students. One of the people there was a former student of mine and I was working with another psychiatrist there. And I asked them and I said, hey, so have you ever seen anything here that doesn't fit the pattern, like a diagnosable illness? And the psychiatrist kind of all of a sudden there was there was a quiet and he looked at me like he's like not sure what to say. And my student said to him, he's from here. So you can trust him. Like, just go ahead. Like he's not going to judge your professional credibility and go, you know, how much of a professional credibility kind of... rests on the credibility of these stories. And the student was there and the student had seen this too. And he said, you know, we had a woman come in and said, I need to be hospitalized. And they said, well, what's going on? So they did the intake. And as they're doing the intake, she said, well, this is what's happening. She held up her arm and she pushed her forearm or thumb to the forearm and pushed and out would come these giant needles. And she kept pushing and more giant needles. And I was like, what did you guys do? And they said, we told her to go home, she wasn't sick. Because they had all witnessed what had happened. I didn't witness that myself. But I mean, I believe these people who were trying to hide the story, you know, didn't feel that it was a legitimate story. So what do we do with that? What do we do with experiences that don't fit our Western understanding of the world? And it's interesting because, you know, Many people who are in the West, particularly white people with a European background, and they'll talk about religion, they'll say, well, I'm not religious. And I say, well, let's talk about that. Their view of religion is really their view or their experience with Christianity. Right. You know, it's like, well, is that religion as a whole? Is that just the religion you grew up with? And all of a sudden we have this really tight blockade of what we think is allowable and not allowable because of our own personal experiences with... with an institution, with a story, a narrative, whether it's faith-based or otherwise. But the question is, what do we do with those stories? Because they exist. They do. Well, and in that case, what also stood out to me from that story is how your colleagues said, like, you won't judge us. It's okay to tell that story. And I'm imagining what shape that conversation would have had if it weren't you. Yeah. And if it were the psychologists telling that story to someone who had no exposure to that country, that region, that land, or the stories of that nature. Yes. So it makes me wonder about, about how we deal with stories like that or mental health in general, or health in general in a place like Canada where people may not have folks who could understand those stories. mean, so psychologists, like other health professionals, have practice guidelines, right? So we have a set of ethics. not like we can veer off and, you know, kind of not practice what we're supposed to practice. There are certain things that are meant to protect the public. I think it's critical in our conceptualization of mental health and mental illness to understand culture in the middle of all And it may not make sense to us, but we have to understand, these experiences outliers? Are they a part of the picture? And now we have this broader understanding, but we can't approach that broader understanding to give a more accurate, because we need that broad view for an accurate conceptualization and ultimately an accurate treatment and an accurate diagnosis without having that open view of understanding where people are coming from. immediately jumped the gun with my patients here and said, well, you've got psychosis and refer them off and now they've got a medicine that doesn't fit for them. And what would that do for their well-being? It was critically important that I understood culture and their viewpoints. And was there an understanding way to see what their experiences were and try to understand an accurate view? of what was happening for them. And culture is a critical part of that. Beautiful. If I... I'm trying to think of how to bring all of this back to stories now. So with that, what stands out is the power of stories in being able to understand culture, in being able to understand your own identity and sort of shape that identity and also to shape our collective identity. message would you leave our listeners with when it comes to how stories matter? Well, stories redefine our community, right? It broadens our like our cognitive view of the world. Like it doesn't mean you have to accept every story to heart. You may not resonate with every story, but you've got to hear it. And I think when we hear it, we understand the world differently, you know. And I think that's that's the critical part is to remember that the stories that we read that we watch, that we view, influence our thinking. And our thinking ultimately influences our emotion towards people that we see are different from us and our behavior for those who are different from us. Incredible. Is there a gin in the family part too? Probably. There's so much more to say about There's a more to say. People are asking, people want a cookbook that goes with Oh, yeah, you do talk so much. I loved your descriptions of food. Thank you. And like just, I was there in the kitchen. Well, cooking is a magic. It is absolutely is. Yeah. To know what to put in, how much, what it smells like. You go by feel. for people. Exactly. I can never, I don't know about you, but I can never give someone a recipe when, and you bake, so you have to be precise. But uh I remember this one time someone asked me for a recipe for chai, like how I make it. And I said, please bear with me as I tell you this long story about how you feel your way through making it. maybe out of, I don't know, a thousand words of text emerged, here are five ingredients that go into it. really, like food in itself, and that's one of things I love about this book is those elements of how food is tied to identity are so strong. Yeah, I talk about that in developing anti-racist cultural competence. think food is contextual, know? But one of the things I worry about is most people take food as like it becomes the only way in, you know? There's a story I remember hearing about like South Asian immigrants to the United Kingdom and how they changed a particular recipe to only have these particular beans, like the canned beans that you'd get. And it was like a whole new dish. so, like culture changes over time and food is a part of that. But I think that's also a bit of a magic in there, right? Where there's an intersection there. But that is still us, that is still a story about us being open to ingredients and people and stories here, but people not being open to us. Yeah. I love that reminder. It makes me think of how whenever I host and I love cooking and I love hosting and feeding people, Now, when I've hosted people a few times, they ask me, so is this the level of spice that you would make for yourself? And I often tell that, the first time you come, I would always ask you, like, what does your tolerance look like? And also for the record, good spicy food doesn't actually burn you. It's just really flavorful. But I love that over time, we can get closer to how I would actually make that food for myself. And that's how we walk together. Thank you so much for being here today. ah What lies ahead? What lies ahead? We've got... More books. Lead with Diversity Press has got two books, that we work on. One this year, maybe a second this year. Incredible. It depends on how that goes, working with authors for that. And then just talking about this stuff. hope people read Gin and the Family, it's my favorite. But if you want, there's three other books. There's T-Pot. There's Developing Anti-Racist Cultural Competence, which is like a nice how-to. It's a great book. And one of my favorite ones, which I co-authored with two other colleagues, Movies, Miniseries and Multiculturalism. That helps people know what to watch and how to watch it and answer your questions. we're just not mindlessly watching stuff on TV, but we are using those opportunities to learn and grow. Yeah, I love that because it leaves me with the message that... Yes, we need to tell our stories and yes, those stories need to be received in a certain way. Absolutely. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks for having me.