 I'd like to introduce you to our, Mashallah, our speakers today, Sabreen Azhar and Nusrat Qadri. Sabreen Azhar is an associate marriage family therapist. She graduated from Santa Clara University with a master's in counseling psychology. She currently works in an elementary school district as a school therapist with the children facing anxiety, depression, trauma, and attachment issues. As-salamu alaikum and Jazaka al-Akhirah, Sabreen. I'd like to introduce you to Nusrat Qadri. She has a master's in counseling and is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She currently works for the Santa Clara Unified District as a wellness coordinator, where she provides a social, emotional support for students, staff, and families. She has also worked at the Khalil Center as a clinician and clinical supervisor. Welcome to you both, Jazaka al-Akhirah for joining. Nekum Snam and thank you. Nekum Snam, Jazaka al-Akhirah. Nice to meet you all, everyone who is joining us. Jazaka al-Akhirah for being here. It's really an honor to be here with all of you and may Allah make this a blessed recording occasion whenever anyone finds it or whoever is joining right now. Insha'Allah, me and Nusrat are going to be talking about the art of communication, which is really a skill that everyone can help in developing in terms of their relationship with their spouses, their partners, and any relationship really with parents, with children. What we will discuss today can be implemented in any relationship, but particularly we're focused on spousal relationship and communication and marriage, but it can be used in any of our close relationships. As we go through this, we like to keep it interactive and so we will have some reflection kind of pauses and times where we would like you to introspect and really look at what your life is bringing in in terms of communication. So we really appreciate if you keep it interactive and both of us are like for others to talk and we don't like to talk that much, but insha'Allah we can keep this interactive. We like to start off with kind of grounding and setting intention. A lot of times we're coming into these talks and these events from all over the place and rushing or something and really starting out with setting the next hour so we're grounding ourselves and taking a deep breath, doing some mascara and looking at our five senses and kind of grounding ourselves and bringing us to where we are right now and being present and then setting intention and so for what we hope to gain and learn and take with us for the next hour. So I'd like to invite everyone to, whoever's joining or whoever's starting this too, just take a minute and pause and take a deep breath or set your intention for this next time. Next hour, insha'Allah. Insha'Allah. So, this is our roadmap for today. We're going to go over what exactly is communication, why is it so important and what we need to do to learn about it. We'll go over different types and styles that there are communication, different research and also kind of talking about what we've learned from, there are stories from the prophets, from the Quran and so now what it takes to have effective communication and what it takes to break communication or barriers and obstacles to communication and then we'll leave a part at the end where there can be questions and discussion insha'Allah. And with that, I'd like to pass it to Nusrat so that we can start with what is communication. So what is communication? And I think Faisa and Sabrina have already covered this. Communication really is the basic building block of our relationships. It's how we communicate our thoughts and feelings and connection and most importantly, connection to one another. So we're talking a little bit beyond the, can you pick up dinner or can you pick up the kids? We're talking about a deeper level of communication in which we are actually connecting with one another and having good communication skills is really critical for successful relationships whether it be with your spouse, siblings, children or your coworkers. So let's start by looking at types of communication. There is verbal and nonverbal. Verbal is basically the language that we use, what we say. Nonverbal includes facial expression, posture, eye contact, gestures, tone of voice, body language and so forth, so far and so forth. So let's take an example right now. Suppose a family member has come home from a long day. They walk through the door and they shut the door a little louder than they normally do. Walk into the living room, throw their backpack or perhaps their briefcase onto the ground and plop really loudly down onto the sofa and they have, their eyebrows are furrowed and seem very tense and you walk up to them and say, how's your day? How are you? And they look at you and just say, I'm fine. So there is verbal communication going on and there's also nonverbal. And are you really gonna believe that they're fine even though they verbally have said they're fine? Their body language has communicated something entirely differently. And so various studies have been done on communication and one that is often cited is Dr. Mehrabians which he concludes that communication is comprised 7% of verbal, you know, verbally what's said and 55% is body language and 38% is your tone of voice. And even, you know, even if we're not watching someone looking at pictures, we also do infer things, right? Like, so take a look at these birds. When you look at them, what are thoughts that come to your mind about what is maybe being said or what they're thinking? I know when I look at it, I'm thinking the front bird is not wanting to share whatever he's eating and the one in the back is like, hey, did you save some for me? Those are thoughts that come up and we all make inferences daily on what we see. So we can move to styles of communication. There are three styles, passive, aggressive and assertive. So passive communicator is often, they devalue their own needs to the point that they allow others, they'll meet other people's needs at the expense of their own. They might keep what they're really thinking and feeling to themselves unless they know that the other person's thinking the same way. Generally people who have a dominant passive personality, sometimes they have a low self-esteem and often they let others people's needs come before their own. So aggressive, the aggressive communicator will try to get their needs met regardless how it affects the feelings or goals of the other person. It may take over a conversation, not seek input and constantly challenge any ideas or feelings that don't align with our own. Aggressive behavior taken in extreme can look like violence, insults and threats. And a third form of communication, style of communication is the assertive communicator. Assertive communicator is they value their own needs and are able to express their needs to others and at the same time respecting the needs of others. Assertive communication often indicates high self-esteem and self-confidence. And the effects of assertive communicators, the effect they have on others is that they elevate others as well and they have strong relationships. I wanna also just kind of mention sometimes we might have a dominant way of communicating perhaps we're an assertive communicator but there'll be times where we decide to be passive and that's okay. So one style is not necessarily better than the others. I mean, we hope that we are more assertive in the way we speak and that we value what other people are saying. But there are times and perhaps if your rights are being violated, we might get a little aggressive. There might be times where we take a passive stance just for the sake of a relationship or keeping a relationship that we're in right now. As long as we do these things with purpose and intention it's okay. All right, so, sorry. A little faster than I was spawning. So examples of communication. Let's think of a scenario. There's a couple who have accepted a dinner invitation and spouse really wants to go and is looking forward to this invitation, this dinner, this social gathering that's gonna happen. And the day of the event spouse B comes home and says that they're really, really tired and they just don't wanna go. So let's look at these different styles and what the conversation might look like. So if spouse A was a passive communicator they might just not go. They won't say anything. They'll keep their disappointment to themselves and they just won't communicate their needs. If spouse A was an aggressive communicator they might say something like I've been waiting all week to go to this and I'm going, you can do whatever you want, right? If spouse A is an assertive communicator they might say something like I understand that you're really tired right now. I'd like to figure out a way that both of our needs can be met. So right now we want to take a minute. So we've learned about different styles and different types of communication. And to really internalize this, let's take a moment and think about our own upbringing. Let's reflect on our childhood. What kind of communication patterns did you see in your family of origin? And I'm just gonna pause for maybe a minute just for you to reflect. How were things said? As you're thinking, think about how were things said? Did people have different styles of communication? What needs, how were needs communicated? What were phrases that you might have heard? So as you were reflecting on this kind of how was it for you? And did you notice anything about yourself? Very often we subconsciously repeat patterns of behavior that we saw growing up. And so we hope that one of the things that you walk away with is being more conscious and intentional in the way we communicate and not just automatically maybe use those unhealthy patterns that we've self-consciously adopted. So I'm gonna hand it over to Sabrine who's gonna talk a little bit more about effective communication. Thank you. From your reflection, exercise I was just thinking of I was reminding of one scenario that I remember someone talked about of how their mother used to give them silent treatment when they were upset and they hated that. But when they got married, they kind of repeated the same pattern when they were upset with their husband. But they, and they were upset with themselves for repeating the pattern but they didn't know how to break the pattern but it was just like a cycle of that. So it's interesting with how family of virgins can really impact the messages that we receive and how we still communicate them. So Sabrine, I just wanted to chime in and I guess I'm one of those people who also goes kind of silent and quiet. I hopefully think I've gotten better about it but sometimes I just find it's sometimes easier to deal with the situation if I just go completely quiet but I know that irritates my family. So how do we, how could we possibly break that? Or what are the best things to do to, like I said, to break that cycle and be better about communicating and not going quiet? We're actually going to talk more about, You're gonna? Right, we are going to talk about that's a great question is it's not necessary like, you know, and as it mentioned that there's no good or bad and to really read the situation and respond. So it's not necessarily bad when we go silent just just the intention and the purpose behind it. And so really quickly dive into it probably later too but really quickly to answer what you're saying is that why are we going silent? Like sometimes when we're going silent is it to just take the time to process how we're feeling and how we're upset and then to communicate that to our partner and not having a really long period of silence but just to communicate to our partner and say, you know, right now I just need time for myself to just process, I'm really upset right now and I just need to take this time and, you know, let's talk in an hour in two hours and, you know, we'll come back together. But just so they know that, you know, this is what you're doing. This is how you're processing and that this is what you need right now and it's not harming them as such but it's just helping them understand you better in terms of what your need is at that time. So it's okay to take that silent retreat for yourself. So it's kind of changing and reframing how to approach the action and the behavior but also not making it like three, going three days with silent treatment and unless you do what I say, then I'm going to talk to you. I don't know if that's helpful. Yes, very helpful, Sabine. Thank you. And I have actually just, sorry, I have in the Facebook chat said if anybody would like to pose any questions I should go ahead and do that. I'll be checking that. And so I'll let you know if there are any questions that come up and I can communicate those over to you. Absolutely, absolutely. We love to have this interactive. So anything that comes up, anything that people have from Mizzet's reflection as well, introspection kind of exercise is free to share and stop me or pause me. Perfect, we'll do. So we learned Mizzet described beautifully kind of the types and styles of communication that different people have and different personalities may have and how our personal histories can impact those things. Liza, you really described how you take the silent treatment and how that can impact your family and how they can get upset. By having effective communication, there's a lot to understand ourselves and understand how our personal history can really impact the way that we're perceiving information and the way that we are giving information. So like with the silent treatment example, say someone has been raised with silent treatment as a form of punishment for doing something on as a child or something. When they are faced, they're in a marriage and they have the husband go silent for a while and not respond and the husband might be stressed at work or something, but it might be silent and not responding. For them, that might be triggering some really hard emotions, thinking that they're upset, the wife or, it could be reversed. I'm using example of wife and husband, but it could be reversed where the wife might be giving silent treatment and the husband might have been raised as that might be something that was troublesome as a child. But really to use those as a guide and following what our world and our communication might look like, I think you can move to the next slide. So we'll go more into depth with each of these kind of factors and aspects that what it takes to really have effective communication. And I think we talk about understanding communication style and different types of styles, but we'll go a little bit more in depth about communication styles and how that might be different for different people and different circumstances. So the first part, I think we'll move to the next slide. The next part is really understanding ourselves. And it might be strange to start with this because a lot of times, especially in our community, sometimes we're like looking for answers and how to really tell someone what we're trying to say, but really understanding ourselves with the foundation of communicating effectively. What are our triggers, our personal triggers? How is it that we are perceiving information? And that's why when we started this presentation as I talked about introspecting and understanding the styles and having the different styles and types of communications, we're really being aware of how we personally are responding to situations, are perceiving situations. A really interesting example, I just came to, but once I was meeting a friend for coffee and I was holding a lot of stuff in my hand and my friend just texted me and said, but I'll be there five minutes late and I had a lot of things in my hand so I just texted back and said K instead of okay, or okay, I just said K and I respond. And then her response was, are you okay? Are you mad? And I was like, yeah, I'm okay. And then when she came, she was worried that are you okay or are you mad at me or something? And I was like, no, I'm fine. And then when we talked about it, for her, that K was like, someone's really upset and they're just not taking the time to respond okay, but that K was just like a okay, like you're late and something. So for me, it was just that I had a lot of things in my hand and I just had to get the message across as best as I could. And so even while we're verbally communicating everything in this world, we have communicating via text, via email, via social media. We have a lot of factors, but just being aware of what's happening in ourselves and how we can respond to the triggers that we personally have and not projecting them. I think in this social media world, we have a lot of images that keep coming and a lot of comparisons that we might make to other people, other marriages, other couples, other friendships and what others have. And that art of comparison is taking over the art of communication, which really impacts our personal relationships. What we need to understand is that that is not reality. What we see on social media, that is not a reality and that people are posting just like a little snippet, a little window, it's like right now, the three of us are visible probably on screen, but we only have a window into where we are in our space. And comparing that to someone's whole home and someone's whole life is really unfair. And comparisons lead to expectations, which really is one of the silent killers of relationships because we start to expect and then we start to get disappointed when our expectations are not met and then that leads to anxiety, that leads to anger, that leads to resentment, that leads to bitterness and it's just a cycle. So one of the things of breaking that is to really find happiness and contentment within ourselves. And the fuller that we are, the happier that we are and the more contentment we find with ourselves and gratitude, the more we're able to give that. And as our cup is full, we are able to give that to our partner and express that to our partner. Looking for external validation and looking for that validation from our partner can also impact our way of communicating to our partner. So if we feel content, we can nourish ourselves and then also give to our partner and nourishing words and nourishing understanding and then in that the communication kind of flows and it becomes more of a we versus I. And again, living an individual by society, there is a lot of, this is what I deserve. It becomes a lot of like a me kind of idea, like me, myself and I. And it becomes focused on what is it that I need? There's a whole lot of self-care, but there's not a lot of couple care. And so there's a balance that I think teaches us in all aspects, you know, humblah for having the teachings of Islam because Allah really teaches us how to be with ourselves as individuals, not to take abuse, not to take, let people take advantage of you, but also to give kindly, to respond generously, to speak with each other in the verses that come to mind or something, you know, even we're talking to parents, Allah says, you know, talk to them in a noble way. And you know, those are relationships that are intimate and that are very close and it's easy to get frustrated. It's easy to get really upset with each other, but Allah reminds us again and again to really take into account and be generous with our words and be kind with our words and be merciful. He is Ar-Rahman and so he is forgiving to us, I think just the way that Allah teaches Musa al-Islam to when he's going to fed on and how to communicate with fed on with respect. And that is one thing that really we miss out on relationships is to have respect for each other and to see each other as humans that, you know, we make mistakes, our husband can make a mistake, our wife can make a mistake, our children can make a mistake and to allow that we can be human in terms of that. And so as a couple, having a team attitude, you know, this is what our needs are as a couple. This is what my needs are for myself as an individual. If they don't match, how do we work together to make sure that our needs as a couple are matched and our needs as individuals are matched and how do we understand that for each other? So one of the tools to understanding each other and I love this tool because it comes up so much in terms of how grounding it can be for people to understand themselves as well as each other. And it's the five love languages that was developed by Gary Chapman. I love the little image too, because it's like the bird is like shocked that, oh my God, I'm getting a sad, pretty cute kiss. But these five love languages are really, they describe how a person can perceive love and how a person can give out love. So for example, you know, words of affirmation if a husband keeps saying to his wife, I love you, I love you, and that's him expressing his love, but the wife doesn't feel love because she's there doing the dishes while her husband's watching TV and being very stereotypical. It could be the other way around. It could be the wife is watching TV and the husband's doing dishes. But you know, the wife is like, okay, you say you love me, but you're just sitting there while I'm doing the dishes. And so for her acts of service where the husband gets up and helps her with the dishes or helps her with the kitchen might be her way of, you know, knowing love or feeling loved. And so recognizing where our spouse or a partner, you know, their relationship around her, how they feel love and receive love is important, but also how we ourselves are feeling loved because oftentimes we're not in touch with that. And I know when I, there's a website if you search the five love languages, you go to a website and you can take a quiz where you can answer different questions and I'll show you what your primary love language is and then your secondary love language so that you can recognize it first of all. And that actually can change over time too. So at different points and different situations there might be different love languages that you need. So, you know, receiving gifts might be like having, especially I am, it doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be, I'm forgetting all the top friends. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't have to be a prior, but it could be something small, right? Like if you went out and, you know, you see a really cute little pen, I love pens. So, you know, you can, you can bring that or if you know that you're a spouse or someone loves pens or, you know, loves something that's really small, you can bring something like that for them and just for no occasion or something like that. But having that time with each other and having to understand the love languages, I think the Prophet Solomon was really good at understanding people and understanding how they feel noticed and they feel like seen. And that is basically what this is, is when we're looking at the love language, the need that people have is to be feel, to feel seen and to feel noticed and to feel like, you know, oh, this is something that my spouse noticed about me. This is something that they really are communicating to me that they love me. Like if someone is upset and what they need is a hug or, you know, holding a hand, that's physical touch. That's their love language. And so just giving them that, and it's about understanding the other and not making sure that the other feels understood. So it's about a give and take, right? We work both ways and that's how relationships work. It's coming together and working together for both. So this might bring out some questions and some feelings amongst people, but research has shown that men and women have different ways of communicating and different ways of really experiencing how to communicate and different things that work. So for example, for men, they, and again, I'm going to preface this with saying, this might not be all men and this might not be all women. It might be switched around, but this is just what the research has brought about. And so to really look at yourself and say like, okay, you know, this is not me, I guess. As a man, for example, the shoulder, shoulder communication, a lot of times men, they prefer to be side by side when they're opening up or having intimate conversations or really expressing themselves for them having that shoulder to shoulder. Even teenagers, I look for anyone who has teenagers that research has shown that teenagers prefer. So when you pick them up from school and you're driving side by side or with your spouse or you're driving side by side, those might be good opportunities to have conversations because that's where they can feel more open and can express more. Versus women like to have face to face where they feel like that's more sincere, that's more relational and intimate and you know, you'd have your full attention and it can be reversed too. So it might be that, you know, sometimes women prefer to have that side by side and not probably open up, but generally what research has shown is that women are more relational. They'll like to have those intimate conversations and be able to sit and have deep conversations face to face versus shoulder to shoulder and that women like to go into feelings more. They'll try to tell a story and a lot of times men will get frustrated and they just get to the point. What is the point to this? And you know, they'll go through the whole nine yards and then get to the point, but that isn't important to for women. That is how they are expressing themselves and you know, for men to understand that can be very liberating because for them they'd be like, what was the whole point of that? And then you're just telling me that you need to get gas, you know, that's the whole point. But men will just come in and say, you know, the facts and they'll just be focused on that. There's a really interesting and funny video online of how men and women's brains are structured and he talks about how men have boxes and they can retrieve one box or one tab at a time. And that's what they're focused on. And there's, I still don't get this one moment but there's a nothing box and they can sit there and be thinking about nothing. And I don't get that because I can never think about nothing. But it is true, they do think about nothing and mashallah, that's a really good skill to have to be able to do that. Versus women have multiple tabs open and they're wired. And you know, Subhanallah, that's how Allah created us and Allah created us this way to compliment each other, not to compete with each other and not to, you know, to make those comparisons that you need to be more like this or you need to be more like that. It's just understanding each other and then having to face the challenges of communication that helping each other to overcome that together. I think we can move to the next one. This is, sorry, just, yeah, this is just so interesting that the previous slide with regards to the style of communication and of course, how their brain is made up and how our brains are made up. And, you know, I think if we were to look more into it and try to grasp that, I think communication, well, could get better, I guess, right? I've heard about the side to side, whereas I, as you were saying, as women we'd like to be face to face. So I contact, right? And so I've noticed that when I've tried to have those conversations, I contact, you know, I'm kind of focused, but like you said, my husband or my teenager will just kind of look away or so I guess I need to do more shoulder to shoulder communication with them. But that's really interesting, just kind of just breaking it down and just kind of visualizing and seeing that. That's very, very helpful, I think. I think just understanding the differences, it takes away the judgment aspect of it because a lot of times you walk away going, oh, they're not interested in what I have to say, they're not looking at me because that's all it's like, basically. And so it alleviates a lot of hurt if we can move to understanding. Sorry, so let me get it back to you. No, no, absolutely, I think that's important. I think, you know, what you're both saying is understanding like, you know, if you were to have a conversation with your husband, you wanted to have a serious conversation to implement the side to side. And, you know, if he wanted to have a conversation with you where you prefer face to face for him to notice that and, you know, have it face to face. So also to understand that and then to come together and do that. And I think oftentimes we just get caught up in the heat of the situation and don't understand it and it gets frustrating. But to know that, you know, there's a biological component to it. There's a personality component to it. And it's nothing against the other person. It's nothing personal, it's just a way of coming together. And to give it a positive spin, I think makes it better. Sometimes involving humor can help. That's why I love that video of the differences now. Like, you know, sometimes when I'll ask my husband, what are you thinking? You'll say nothing and we'll laugh at it because you keep thinking about nothing. And I still don't get how that happens. I know, I'm still trying to work my way around that, but I'm definitely gonna ask my husband that question. It is, and I've asked him to teach me that skill because I feel like it's a helpful one. Absolutely, it's nice not to be able to have to think about anything, right? Right, right. Like you said, we're always multitaskers, we're always something that we're thinking about. It's just never a moment where we're not thinking about something. But let us know what the magic answer is to that, Sabrina, we'll keep it posted on it. I will, if I find out, I will. If anyone else finds out. I know, please share. Some of that is functional. We have kids and you know, any parent who's at home with like kids running around, you are thinking about what each child is doing and then you have to do your home, you know, you're doing your cooking and your cleaning and you're multitasking, right? And women tend to do that generally, not always, you know, tend to do that a lot. So it makes more sense that we can keep all these boxes open because we are attending to so many different things. Right, I'm not sure. I mean, that, like my husband appreciates that, he's like, I don't understand how you can keep tabs with all of these different things that are going on and you know, still show up to all of them. So they're all skills. Yeah. So part of like a lot of what we're discovering and like learning is, you know, the different components to how each person and each individual is and as a couple, how communication can be. And so being intentional in our communication is the key aspect of, you know, bringing it all together. It's kind of like the big overarching thing of how to bring all of this communication together is to really be intentional and mindful in our communication, considering what the appropriate style might be. You know, in some occasions, I think those have mentioned that being passive might be better than being assertive and that might be more helpful in the relationship at that moment. You know, for example, if one spouse is really upset, really upset, really heated up and, you know, the other spouse also starts matching that with being heated up, it's going to miss the whole point. One of the basic needs, I think those have mentioned this earlier is, you know, having connection with the other and one of the basic needs for being connected is feeling safe. So feeling safe to be able to express yourself, feeling safe to be able to communicate and it goes back to the brain where our nervous system actually when we are heated or we're triggered, our brains are not, I think people have heard of a fight-flight response to trauma mostly, but it is a way where if someone's triggered, their brain is literally like, you know, if it's like this, it's flip the lid. And so they're not in a safe zone to really comprehend what you might be trying to communicate and trying to say, even if you're saying the right thing, it might not be registering as such because they don't feel safe to communicate. And, you know, that safety is something that is intentional and built into a relationship between a husband and a wife. And I always feel like it's, you know, the example of the Prophet's house along where when he was given the first revelation and the first thing he felt scared, he felt like, you know, what is this? He didn't know, it was a big unknown. And the first thing he did was he ran home to his wife and he was very vulnerable at that point. And, you know, he didn't know what had happened. He didn't know how she was left, but he felt safe to communicate to her that this is what I just experienced. And this is, I don't know what it is, you know, and that safety is built over time and that trust to be able to come in and know that, you know, your spouse is not going to judge you, your spouse is your safe zone and that your spouse will be able to hold you in those times where you feel wonderful or feel like, you know, you need to really communicate something that's so, you know, such an experience that you might have. And, you know, I think our families need to learn how to have that holding spaces and homes and being intentional and mindful of that. Because we're looking at it again more and more, we're seeing how, you know, people are going out to friends and to other members and communicating to them what they're feeling versus coming home and expressing that to their own family members with whom they might feel something or want to work something out. And, you know, nine times out of 10 when I work on these situations and I work with families, a lot of it is like assumptions that are built up and we'll go into assumptions that, you know, if I tell my mom this or if I tell my husband is they're going to react this way. And a lot of times when it actually comes down to a situation gets worse and then when they actually sit down and communicate, you know, the reception is actually really well. And they say, well, why didn't you tell me before? Why wouldn't you communicate? And so the family unit, it's actually called triangulation when I think when the person goes out and expresses to the other person versus coming to the same person. But what's happening at the family unit is there are a lot of other voices that are filtering in and that communication then gets lost because there's a lot of noise. There's a social media noise. There's like, you're going to your friend and asking for advice, but having proper trusted spaces and holding spaces and then going to the proper resources to really, you know, figure out what's going on and making that safe place to be able to talk to each other, to be able to express and to be able to be your own individual self but also help your spouse be their own individual self and then come together as a couple and define yourself in that way. So considering appropriate style, considering the different layers of what's the right time, what's the right space, or what's the right language to use. Like there might be times where, you know, the husband is really stressed at work and the wife is like, you know, he's not paying me any attention and usually men when they're stressed at work, they don't really communicate because they might not communicate about feelings, but also like it matters on how safe they feel to communicate the feeling. So it might not be the time to bring up, you know, something that the wife has been wanting something but to really notice what's going on and tune into that. You know, one of the things I like to say is that for husband and wife and for families, we want to create spaces where we provide ease for each other and not difficulty. And so being sources of ease and sources of safe zones and holding each other and being mindful of that. And all of that can really be centered on Allah. I mean, Hamd Allah, we have a really rich religion that when we center ourselves with Allah and center our relationships with Allah, it's actually very liberating in terms of, you know, what would Allah want me to do in the situation? I really feel like I need my husband to do this and I need to tell him that. I need him to know that this is not right. And that's right. It might not be right. But how would Allah want me to address him? How would Allah want me to tell him this? And the same thing for a husband. I don't want my wife to be doing this. And a lot of times these things come up with financial things and different arguments, but you know, how would Allah want me to address my wife? And knowing that and being mindful of Allah and centering our relationship in that can make it more intentional, make it more effective, make it more impactful and make it full of barakah and mercy. You know, we heard the verse, the verse in Surah Jalum where it talks about how there's mawadah and rahmah between that Allah made, you know, pariahs with each other. I won't quote exactly, I'm forgetting the title, but that there's mawadah and rahmah. And you know, oftentimes we just take that for granted. Okay, we're getting married and Allah's going to give us mawadah and rahmah, but it takes work to maintain that mawadah and rahmah and it takes both people in the marriage and then the couple unit to really work on that mawadah and rahmah and that's what the communication that we're having with each other in our presence. Sabreen, just kind of backtracking with a couple of things that you've said, you know, just as men, I think the generalization is that men don't tend to communicate as much or don't express their feelings as much and if they're having a really stressful time at work, you know, they're not really expressing it or they're expressing it in different ways. I mean, how do we, you know, provide those tools for them or how can they become, I guess, better at expressing their feelings or communicating? Of course, I'm, you know, I have a teenage son, mashallah, he's getting older and I want him to be able to, you know, empathize and be able to, you know, eventually when he has his own relationship that he should be able to talk about things or if he stressed about things he should, how do we kind of empower them or how do we teach them? I know a lot of what we said before is kind of part of your nature of how man is made up or how a woman is made up. It's the makeup of them, but I'm just wondering how can we help in that area to make them better communicators or for them to be able to be more expressive with their feelings? I think that's great. I don't know if you want to take that first through. No, go ahead. No, we can brainstorm, I'm just... No, it's a great question and I think the first thing that comes to mind is really looking at the person in front of you and seeing what would work. You know, for your son it might be different, for your husband it might be different, for my brother it might be different, for, you know, my husband might be different, for my cousin it might be different, but literally looking at the person in front of you and seeing that and one of the things that I agree to that we have, you know, all this Western psychology and all this, it's brilliant and it really helps. But Islam has given us a lot of diverse information in terms of that too with the different companions and, you know, the different prophets and the sunnah and the Quran and, you know, there is such a diversity of personalities with the companions, with the prophets and what they were given and so helping them relate to those power figures really and seeing how they manage and how they express their emotions, you know, in the Quran Allah talks about like being in the prophet, saying, you know, one will the help of Allah come. You know, that is really expressing emotion, that they're really reaching a point where they're desperate and they need help. The companions, you know, the difference between Abu Bakr's personality and Omar's personality and both are good, both are okay, both are needed. And so looking at the personality of the person and, you know, giving them that acceptance and validating them in that way. And then when it comes to teaching about feeling and expressing, I think really modeling is a lot of what we can do in terms of showing that, you know, this is normal. It's normal to express feelings and when they do to really take it in to sit and then take it in and it could be a little thing like, you know, mama, I really want to have French toast today. And, you know, just being like, oh, I'm really glad you expressed that and not making it a big deal out of it too, but also like appreciating that, you know, oh, you really want to have French toast and it starts young and that's helpful, but it can at any age, if you give someone that validation and that, you know, normalization of expressing feelings, I think that we are wired to learn and incorporate that. I don't know if that helps and through. Absolutely. I don't know, I've put my, Marshala, what can I say? They're very expressive. I'm not sure. They're over my family, but I do hear this a lot. Like my, I think I speak about my father. My father wasn't very expressive, you know, with his feelings. And so, and I hear this across the board that, you know, men generally tend to keep their feelings in or don't tend to express themselves or if they are going through something at work, they don't tend to say, it could be honestly just to protect their own families just so that they don't worry them in a way, right? But then some of them just kind of internalize so much that it can lead to other things. And so I was just wondering, I just like how you said it, like just start modeling it, just start saying that it's okay to be, express yourself, just tell me how you're feeling, you know, and sometimes it comes to some more naturally than others. And it's good to hear that. So thank you. I think generally in society, we need to normalize men, like, you know, when boys are younger, they're taught, don't cry, boys don't cry. You know, things like that. I think generally in the bigger community, we have to normalize and the profits sell, and cried, and he named crying as a mercy, you know, from Allah. So it's normalizing those emotions, normalizing that this happens. And this is just part of being human. And in different times, there might be different ways of doing, even anger, you know, anger to a certain degree, anger at injustice is a normal emotion. And how we channel that is just how it is. And that's the beauty of Islam is that Allah teaches us about emotions, grief, anger, and they're all talked about in the Quran, grief, fear, anger, all of these emotions are talked about and they're normal. It's just how we channel them and how we cope with them and how we communicate them to each other. Perfect. Thank you, Sereem. Thank you. And I think you've mentioned it, creating those moments of opportunities to communicate. And something that is dying that I keep finding out as I speak to more and more kids is that people don't have dinner together, you know, just that sitting around a table, having a conversation, modeling for your children what it's like to talk about your day, you know, how it went, highs and lows. And it just really saddens me because the more I speak to kids, I'm finding out that everyone needs at different times or they have screens in front of you and all of that. And so providing these moments, intentional moments of connection. You know, people think, oh, you know, we all are living our lives and we're all busy and we all have all these things on our mind. And of course we're talking, we're communicating with our spouses. We're asking who's picking up the kids and, you know, what do you want for dinner and whatever. But that's not intentional, meaningful communication that promotes connection. And I think we just really, really need to be conscientious of doing that more with our kids and not, not only providing that opportunity, but really monitoring our reactions. A lot of times kids bottle up because as parents, we react to what they're saying, right? Instead of like, like just keeping our own emotions in tune, we react in such a way that we create an environment with the kids all of a sudden don't feel safe. And we do it with our spouses and we do it with our children. So just being really mindful of that. And we're going to talk about reflective listening in just a moment and maybe look at some skills to do that more intentionally. Okay. Thank you for sharing this. Very, very important point. Thank you. So we had a lot of information on this a little first, a while ago. So we're going to go back to our reflection exercise. And we've all had moments in which we felt understood or not understood. So take a moment and think about a conversation in which you felt heard and a conversation which you didn't feel heard. And if you could, as you're thinking about that moment, recalling that moment, think about what did the other person do or say that made you feel heard? Or what did the other person do or say that maybe didn't make you feel heard and made you shut down? And how did you react to each? And what was feelings that were coming up for you? So I'm just going to give you around 30 seconds to think about it. I'm going to check in on the Facebook chat and see if there are any questions and any reflections from what you've just asked as well. So I know things that I've heard or that I've come up for other people is they'll say, you know, bring something up. And we all do this in which someone tells us about a hardship they're having. And then we recall a time that we've had the same thing. And our intent sometimes is to show empathy, but what we ended up doing is making it all about ourselves. You know, when that happened to me, this is what I did. And we might do it with the best of intentions, but what we've done is just invalidated what the other person was saying, right? Sometimes we just kind of... And so people sometimes walk away from that conversation. And I know I've had that experience where I felt, well, okay, it's not about me anymore. It's about you. And I've just gone silent and listened to what they have had to say. How about either of you have any experiences in which you maybe did feel hurt or didn't feel hurt? I mean, just coming back to what you're saying, those are about certain people making it about themselves sometimes. I've noticed that a lot. And yeah, when you're trying to express something about what you're going through and suddenly, like you said, it's just... And I had it 10 times worse, you know? Okay, I'm just not getting what I was hoping for, the support that I was hoping for over here. So yeah, just thinking about that. Yeah, but there are, of course, there are multiple incidents where... I'm trying to think of some, but it's a green chime in what I think of some. I just remembered I recently did a training for new therapists that were starting at the school district and, you know, went off and shared a time where she did feel hurt. And it was interesting that she said that she just lost a friend, one of her friends had just passed away and she was in high school and she went to the school counselor and all she did was cry and the counselor just let her cry. And so it's not even saying anything, but allowing that space to just be hurt and cry. And she said that, you know, now she's in grad school and she was served by that, and that was a high school experience, but she still remembered it. And so I think that impact of just carrying someone in their pain and just sitting with their pain is a really powerful way of... Yeah. You know, as a therapist, as you were saying, it reminds me of when I was in school, I was in grad school, and that was one of the most powerful lessons I learned. You know, we were role playing and my partner was telling, you know, something really personal that happened and I chimed in, right? Or I had something to say and the instructor really, as a therapist, it was one of the hardest skills to learn to not, you know, sometimes we chime in, we want to make the other person feel better and it's, you know, it was... let the person sit in whatever they're feeling and more will come out if you allow that. And it really, it's difficult. It's easier said than done. But it's more into build that mindfulness and give people their space. My professor used to say, walk the path of pain. Yeah. Whenever, yeah, you're with your friend and you just choose to walk the path of pain and I think that is our thing is we want to fix it and we want to make it all better and put a band-aid on it. So we could feel good, right? Yeah. All of a sudden it becomes about us and that they maybe just need to emote and just get it all out. But we need to feel better. So we want to just put a band-aid on it and move on. And yes, that's what the professor said. He walked the path of pain with people. Right. And just coming back to, like, when I did the domestic violence training a few months ago and have interacted with sisters since just meet them where they're at. And that was really important to hear that. Although it may sound simple, but it really is like, as I was saying, it's very, very difficult. I also want to just kind of meet them where they're at, listen to them and try not to chime in and give all this advice. Because sometimes it's so easy to give all this advice and think you've made it better for them, but in some ways you may have made it worse. So, you know, don't be judgmental. Meet them where they're at. And yeah, just lend a good listening ear, I guess. So that's something that I've definitely learned with the training and just speaking to martial experts like yourselves. I think it's really, really important. It's a very difficult, it's a very, it's a very important skill to have, right? And to learn. So thank you for those reminders. So this is a great segue into our next slide, which is really about reflectives to listening. And, you know, as we're talking, it just reminds me that we have two ears in one mouth, right? So perhaps we should be doing twice the amount of listening than we do talking. But somehow talking is just so much easier to do. And I remember a friend saying that, you know, we talk and say things so easily, yet we have two gates. We have our teeth and our lips, right? And those should prompt us to keep that and keep our ears open. However, we do a lot more talking sometimes than we do listening. Wow, I love that. Yeah. Very true. And it really is a skill that we want everyone to walk away with today. Simply put, reflective listening is paraphrasing and restating both the words and feelings of the speaker. And reflecting in reflective listening, we attempt to reconstruct what the other person is thinking and feeling and to relate this understanding back to the speaker and then checking for accuracy, making sure that you've understood what they're saying correctly. And the effect of the strategy often is that the speaker feels that you're really trying to understand them and understand what it's like to be in their shoes. It also encourages the speaker to continue to talk and to share their thoughts. And sometimes when we do that reflection piece, it also allows us to speak to reflect on their own words, having it, you know, they hearing what they said helps them to kind of process it a little more and may perhaps sometimes in a different way. So what are the components of reflective listening? One is presence. Our very presence needs to communicate attentiveness. And you know, Subhanallah, when you hear stories from, you know, all these speakers about the prophet and the Sahabas when they were talking to him, they all felt like they were the most while they were talking to him that they felt they were the most important person in the world to him, right? And that's why we feel so heard. And with our bodies, especially these days, we need to try and do that as well, which might mean putting away our phones, right? Putting them in another room, hopefully. Turning our bodies and our eyes and our faces towards the person that we're speaking to. And with our very presence and body and being, making them feel that what they are saying is important. So the next component of reflective listening is kind of paraphrasing and we talked about this just a bit ago. Reflecting back to the speaker what you just heard and checking for accuracy. It builds openness and empathy and acceptance. Next, what we want to do is we want to clarify the implicit. And I think we've, we've spent a lot of time talking about how a lot of times that nonverbal communication, we make inferences, we have judgments and, you know, all of us, our reality is really our perception, right? And so we look at things through our own lens and we want to make sure that we have made, that we haven't projected our own thoughts and ideas onto the person we want to check for clarity. Like if we're reading into some nonverbal behavior, you want to just, you know, kind of check in with, you know, I've just noticed that you seem, your expression seems a little angry or you're angry right now. We're just checking in, we're not just assuming. So we want to clarify those things that are implicit. The last thing we want to do is reflect back those core feelings. It's really important to kind of restate important thoughts and feelings. And when we do that, we just want to be cautious that we're not overreaching and maybe projecting that, you know, maybe you should, you should, we think they should be feeling that we want to really just limit ourselves to what we heard them say and what, you know, and just really what they have said that they are feeling or thinking. So those are some reflective listening skills that we wanted to leave you with. Oh, goodness. I'm sorry, I just, all right. So there's some principles of effective communication. So we talked about listening, which is definitely more important. And so of course, actually when communicating, there are some principles that really help. And this is taken from Marshall Rosenberg's nonviolent communication. And there are four things that you want to take into consideration. One is that you want to observe when we're communicating, if there is a problem, you want to just observe and state facts, information related to the communication. What is the info that's being presented, looking, you know, looking at it just objectively, just presenting the facts. And then we want to move to feelings. And first and foremost, we want to look at our own feelings. What's coming up for me in this conversation and I think Sabrina talked a lot about the importance of seeing, looking internally and being introspective and knowing what you're thinking and feeling. Because very often when we don't do that, we end up being very reactionary and we end up speaking from our emotions and our feelings rather than really responding in a way that, that promotes understanding. So we want to understand our own feelings and the feelings of the person that we are speaking to. And third, we want to communicate our needs. What needs are coming up for both parties? What do I need and what does that person need? And then finally, taking those three things into consideration, we want to make a request. So let's go back to the example of the couple that we talked about early on when there was this party that the couple was invited to and one person was really looking forward to going. The other party was just tired that day. And so stating observations is just, you know, we have a party tonight and it seems like we have two different, you know, we're having, we're not on the same page on this. I really want to go when you don't, you're stating your feelings and acknowledging perhaps that one person, what are the needs coming up? One person needs to stay home because they're really, really tired. The other person really needs to go because they were tired and they had all these plans for going to this party and connecting with people. So based on that, you want to put in your request. So maybe the request is, you know, I acknowledge that you were really tired and really not up to going, but I really have wanted to go and been looking forward to this for quite a while. So is it possible that perhaps I go and make apologies or can we go, we'll go and you come back early and I'll get a ride from somewhere else and stay longer, right? So you want to state the facts, state your feelings, needs, and then put it in your request. So what we're going to do next is look at some examples of this, just some tips and reminders. So when we were talking about describing things objectively and just presenting the problem as information, saying something like you were 20 minutes late for picking me up this morning, that's just objective information, but saying that you were really unreliable. Well, now we're assassinating someone's character, right? We're questioning their character. So we want to be really, when a problem arises, we want to be really cautious of how we state things, stick to the facts, what happened, right? Let's not project our feelings or, you know, or like question someone's character. And then next, we want to be genuine, not only do we want to be genuine, but we want to show empathy and be compassionate and merciful. Some of the things that Sabrina had mentioned earlier. And I really have recently realized the importance of showing empathy. So I work in the school district and I work with middle school kids. And one of the lessons we try to teach is effective communication, right? And anyone who's taken mental counseling or what have you, one thing that they teach is making eye statements. And so we put these concepts, the four concepts of nonviolent communication, we give them a sentence then. It's usually like, I feel when I need, right? So we're kind of encouraging them to state what they feel when, you know, what happened that made them feel that way and their needs. And so, you know, middle school kids, you know, they can put you in your, it's very humbling to work with kids because they will find the loopholes in everything that you say. And so one statement that a student came up with was, I feel really angry when you act like an idiot, I need you to go away. And so I think it's really important that we, first of all, I no longer teach eye statements for several reasons. One is that, and the Supreme mentioned this early, that we need to go from an eye to OE, right? Very often in conversations, we are really, we're focused on getting our point across, right? And we need to focus on understanding rather than being understood. So when we phrase our, when we phrase our sentences, be very conscientious, like be genuine. This kid was being really, really genuine, but he wasn't being very empathetic. So that part of being merciful, well, this is your family member, this is, you know, we're talking about spices, spouses. So this is the person you're going to be living the rest of your life with. So be kind and gentle and, and quite honestly, you want the other person, you know, wanting the other person to win an argument is probably a really good way to, it's something to remind yourself to be humble. And even though very often we think that we're right, I think it's really important to have that place in your heart that you question that and, and remain curious. And even though you think it's right, keep your heart and mind open to the possibility that perhaps there is something this other person has that I'm just not seeing right now. So communicating equality and that is, you know, making sure that you're recognizing the other person might have a different opinion than your own, right? And that I understand that you have a concern, right? You're putting them on equal footing instead of saying, how dare you question what I did? Or this is what I said we're going to do. Keeping an open mind and heart. And I think I just spoke to this is that be sure to keep your mind and heart open. We need to be humble for our own, for our own betterment and keep that possibility always open. So with that, I am going to hand it over to Sabrina to look at barriers to communication. Before I start, I actually was reminded of some things from what you were talking about, you know, that the other person might have something significant to say or something. There's actually a flaw. And I'm forgetting the exact words. There's a flaw that, you know, if truth is on my, like if I am speaking the truth and let it flow to the other person or let the other person, but if the other person is speaking the truth and let it flow to me and open my heart to it. And I think that's, I thought I was really, I love that thought because it really shows, it really humbles you and it really says that, you know, the other person might be speaking the truth and it might be me that's not understanding. You know, and if it is me that's speaking the truth and to, you know, take that tool of thought and really expand it. And even if we don't need that thought, what I really, what I really find powerful is when you are disagreeing with someone and you're in that moment feeling really angry to make the law for the other person. Right. Right. And just, it just opens hearts. Yeah. It opens your own heart. I think profanity says why, that's why I just say so much all the time. It's such a beautiful, it's like it's out of my chest. So it's a ball of communication. Yes. Absolutely. I'm trying to not for my tongue so that they may understand what I'm saying. And, you know, it just opens those doors. And I think that it's actually nice that we're two barriers because it's open. No. But it just aligns your thought process. It's just amazing. And once again, you've referred to the Quran and Sunnah and Dua's Mashallah are so powerful. Right. But just in that moment, right, you know, I know we want to be mindful and we want to say the right things. Right. You have the, you know, the crosses and the ticks and it just, you know, it's all about how you phrase things. Right. Absolutely. How it comes out. Does it come out wrong? Does it come out right? And you intend to say it right, but it comes out wrong. You know, and so we rely on Dua's as such. But how do we, and I'm assuming we're coming on to the barriers to communication now because as much as we are well-intentioned, I speak for myself. There are times when, you know, I'm like, okay, I'm going in. The Dua is going to be fine. And I can say this is going to come out right. But you get caught in the emotion and the moment you think, okay, you know what? It's just, it didn't come out right. It's just all gone too far. So I mean, I know there's no magic answer to this, but just preventing that from happening. How do we do that? I mean, I'd say one of the magic answers to that is that we cannot always prevent that from happening. will make mistakes and that angrily will not flow. You know this is right now a presentation or we're going through it but you know when it comes to the reality of it and we're all human and there will be those moments where you know even with me I've learned all this sometimes so much you know all that goes out the door and I'm just you know I I will make mistakes and recognizing that you know that that will happen but then how we recover and how we repair from that right we'll I think I'll talk about conflict a little bit but a lot of times we think conflict is you know it will make the relationship worse but it can actually transform your relationship into a healthier relationship because conflict is and cannot avoid it I'm very conflict avoidant but um you know I'm increasing me a lot keeps showing me that you cannot avoid conflict and you're gonna be to disagree right I think right yeah and I think we just got earlier about being well-intentioned to recognize that all of us are well-intentioned that you know when we're coming together and speaking to our spouse that there is always that well-intentioned and that not to think the other person is really out to get you or wants to harm you but but knowing that they're they're coming from a good place and that's meeting together in that point and meeting them where they're at like you said perfect thank you yeah so barriers we can move on to and that will move on to you know some of the challenges that we do face in terms of barriers and these are just some that this is John Gottman and I think Gottman is um a lot of people have sort of got the Gottmans and they did a lot of research for several years and their research actually provided with 90% accuracy on how they could predict divorce and how relationships could end and these are the four they call them the the four horsemen to the apocalypse because this would really predict the end of a relationship and and the four categories were contempt criticism defensiveness and stonewalling and these are behaviors that a person might practice and and again you know we've we've covered where we come from and all the recognizing that you know we're a person from and how these behaviors can be in a relationship and the point is that if someone is practicing these behaviors are present in a relationship recognizing them acknowledging them and then working on making them better to have a healthy relationship so there are antidotes to these relations so that's not if someone is practicing criticism that that's it that's that's the end of the relationship it's just knowing okay this is a barrier this is an obstacle this is something I need to stop doing this is something I need to communicate to my husband or my wife um or you know my in-laws or my mother that you know I this is something they need to stop doing then how do we work through that so criticism is more attacking the personality of a person or attacking the person and contempt is more attacking the entire self and in doing it in a more like uh like being superior to that person or feeling like you know you're superior to the person like you know how how do you think you can do that or like you know just demeaning the person mocking them or really looking at them like that's why I like the image of the bird because it's kind of like you know I am high and mighty and like you know how do you do that and criticism is something that I think we see a lot in terms of like you know how could you do something like that like are you stupid are you this and just saying those kind of things that really attack someone personally and one of the ways of really combating that and we talked about words of affirmation is really to look and appreciate a person for things they cannot control like their personality or the way that they look and you know Allah gave us these looks and personality and so you know saying something sweet or loving to your spouse and creating that environment of affection and love and you know that helps to kind of kick criticism out of the way and if it is present in relationships and to really monitor and and look at ourselves in that defensiveness it's kind of victimizing yourself so if someone says you know I think I'm like oh did you pay the bills and the you know the husband might just be asking the wife you know just casually did you pay the bills and she might be like oh my god like why didn't you pay the bills you know I was busy and you know it's your fault you didn't pay the bills in this theorem but just acknowledging it and sometimes saying you know oh I'm sorry it was my fault I'll be more careful and just um helping that along and then stone walling is um I'm trying to kind of go through these fasts because I'm aware of the time um and stone walling is literally shutting down and um it's like talking to a wall and oftentimes I think if you go to the next uh so it's oftentimes that occurs as well the flooding which is where you throw all of this information you're having this kind of uh nervous system breakdown where you're flooded with all this information you're just going to shut off mode and you start to stone wall and with a lot of flooding that can actually become like second nature so whenever someone brings something up it's just like a wall and and you just kind of ignore it and that that kind of leads to a very unhealthy environment in terms of being able to communicate and being able to work through things. Reactivity is one like walking around eggshells around a person and you know um being afraid that if I say something they're going to react and so just keeping that in oftentimes flooding occurs with that too like when you keep something in you keep walling it and you keep stuffing it in and then the dam just opens and you flood someone with that and then you know they don't start begin to start stonewalling and then you feel dismissed and it just escalates into more and more and then assumptions and mistreating is a really poignant worst in the chron that says uh I think it's a tsuda hajrat where it says um avoid suspicion um suspicions you know it can be as thin and and that you know in terms of our relationship to we we need to stop assuming that this is what our husband went this is what my wife meant and mistreating situations um there is this concept I meant to talk about earlier but you know having emotional bids that you know a husband and wife can make into uh really listen into that and and not um and and like engage in that so not turn away from it and to turn to words your husband wife and and oftentimes when someone might say something might assume that they're acting on this uh because of this but to clarify and to understand where the person is coming from so that we avoid mistreating the situation mistreating what they're implying and really aware of the time I'm sorry I rushed through that but it's a mistake um but that's kind of um what we wanted to cover you know it's uh there's a lot that goes into and there's a lot that we need to practice and uh you know there are obstacles and challenges but how much we have the tools the bases and the biggest thing is a lot has given us an internal compass that you know if we do nourish that and nurture that and focus on the good a lot of times our defense mechanisms will always focus on what's wrong and what's not and that and that's that's a human thing we want to protect ourselves from hurt but actually opening ourselves up to infocusing on the good and increasing that and nourishing that will actually help with the communication I was just going to check but thank you so much um for your you know your final remarks as well Sabrine so important so so much insight into um communication and barriers and and and I you know all these things these emotions that we feel like you know the terms are so relatable right like all the terminology that you're bringing up um you you behave in these ways but you don't know that there's a term given to it you know and um it's it's it's it's quite amazing um just to like it's a changing that that mindset being more mindful empathetic um but um it's it's very interesting I mean I've learned a lot and I share I'm getting text messages and I'm seeing on Facebook because all people are really appreciating what you've had to share today with us um does it do you have any um kind of closing remarks or I think actually you've been sharing gems throughout both of you have but kind of that that that final gem where I think um I just want to remind everyone that sometimes we hear all this information and we go into this I should be doing this I should be doing that and we can't all show up and I know I work on this constantly we we don't always show up in our best selves right although we we we wish that we lived our best selves every moment of every day we don't the reality is so be show yourself some grace but put forth that intention to bring forth your best self right and we can even when a communication goes awry it's not that we made a mistake you know it's important to be able to come back to it and create that kind of relationship and environment that you can come back to your partner and say you know listen I wasn't my best self back then so can we do a redo and have that conversation I kind of speak to when you go silent right understanding that your silence really bugs people and they take it a different way so it's important for us to just come forth and say you know what this is what I need in this moment and I know you need to discuss it let's just give it some time right and and closing that loop and communicating even if you can't communicate your thoughts and feelings at least you're communicating that I'm not ignoring you I'm not trying to hurt you I'm trying to take care of myself and then we'll come back to this and I think that's my one of the most important things is to really check in with your feelings know you know and and take care of them and once you have and communicate with the other person okay thank you Elizabeth we have a question how do you remember and I think we've just we've mentioned this I mean how do you remember all of this when you are in that moment of of anger right you just how do you step back and really put these things into perspective in that moment when you are just so mad and so angry um what are what tools what could you what can you share with us um I you know that is first recognizing I am really angry and I'm not going to be in my best self right and removing yourself whether it is saying I need to step away whether go I I remember when my boys are a little I actually walked into the bathroom and said I need to lock myself in the bathroom and take care of myself before I come in out and deal with this and so acknowledging yeah when you're really really angry you're not going to be able to remember any of this you're you know your your prefrontal cortex is totally disconnected from from your brainstem right and and so you're not going to have clear and coherent thought and I think the most important thing you can do is to walk away and get to the point of calming down and very often to hear from teachers and parents that well no we need to address the situation right then and it's like no you really don't right you're not going to be benefiting you're probably going to do more harm than good to go away take care of your emotions see if you can get to the and it doesn't mean that you're calm down and make the anger go away but you if you can get to the place of all right I'm really angry um it doesn't mean that you're not to say that you know whatever happened uh you shouldn't get angry you can get angry but just get to a place of okay what am I going to do to address this anger sorry to bring no that was great I think just what you said that you know acknowledging that there's anger and it's hard it's hard to remember all of this stuff when we're angry like you said the prefrontal cortex is disconnecting it and to allow ourselves that grace um and then recognize tools that we can practice um when we're angry and you know a lot of uh in a song we have you know if you're standing sit down if you're sitting down lie down drink a glass of water or something um take time away walk away make wudu for me um when I'm angry I like to go make wudu and you know just take time away and just process um process what's making me angry what what is it about the situation that I am angry about is that I feel like my feelings were dismissed is that I feel like I'm not being heard I'm not being seen is that I felt disrespected what what is it exactly that is making me angry and then um processing that and then coming back to it and in giving yourself that time um you know different things and help different people journaling can help sometimes I journal like this is what I'm feeling I'm angry about this thing and I I don't know how to do it and you know just when you when you start to process it it really goes down to that deep feeling of okay this this is actually what is making me angry and this is this is what I felt happened and then when coming back to it with your partner your spouse or whoever you're angry with it can it can be a more meaningful conversation and a more impactful conversation perfect thank you so much both Elizabeth and Breen much out of for this amazing presentation um it's it's like I said it's been very very beneficial we will be posting the recording to our missa facebook live also to our facebook page and also to our website sorry for those of you who were not able to join we were having some technical difficulties and we do appreciate everybody's understanding but like I said inshallah we will be posting the recording um in a timely way sometime today or tomorrow inshallah thank you once again sabreen and knows it for your time the presentation you know just your reflections the insights the I I cannot thank you both enough for it um it is our kala khairan for your time I really do appreciate it just a kala khairan for having a kala thank you thank you