Tala Mansour 29/5/26 Tala Mansour 29/5/26

Boundaries… Breaking Myths and Building Skills

Today we are breaking down the common misconceptions about boundaries, exploring the deeply skilled and nuanced way we can set boundaries in our lives.

On this cold and gloomy Friday morning, I am reflecting on the very controversial topic of boundaries, and how much space it has taken in recent sessions with clients. Some people view boundaries with disgust and vehemence, others with relief and wonder, at how they have never thought to use them before in relationships. Let us break down the true depth of boundaries and challenge some common misconceptions about, what I believe to be, one of the best techniques we can use to navigate difficult relationships.

Boundaries are protective. Full stop. No matter what your experience has been with boundaries thus far, I can assure you, if they have felt uncomfortable or abrasive, it is likely that the other person was unskilled in the application of this intervention. Boundaries are not selfish, they are not indulgent, they are not reactive. Boundaries are considered, measured and require a level of emotional intelligence, nuance and skilled communication to effectively establish. The reason why a boundary exists in a relationship is to protect the relationship. If a boundary means permanently ending the relationship, then it is not a boundary.

Let us elucidate this point with an example. Let us say that I have a dear friend who is very keen to get pregnant, whereas I am not interested in doing so, and actually become agitated by repeated questions or hints about starting a family. She sends multiple videos and photos about babies and how wonderful life is as a mother. Her intentions are pure and loving, however, she is unaware of the emotional strain she is causing me. I find myself drained after interactions, and feel myself withdrawing and wanting to avoid contact with that friend (very common warning signs that your needs, feelings and rights are not being appropriately respected in a relationship dynamic). In order to protect that friendship, I needed to set the boundary that moving forward, it would be appreciated if content around babies and motherhood could be limited and there is room to discuss other topics in the friendship.

This serves to;

Protect the friendship by creating safety in our interactions once more, for me to feel safe continuing to show up.
Acknowledges my needs and emotions as valid and important in the relationship.
Reduces the risk of emotional suppression or self-sacrifice (to keep the peace), which would have resulted in resentment building over time.
Respects the rights of the friend to be able to make an informed choice in the friendship, providing her the opportunity to respond to and meet my needs, rather than me deciding for us that the friendship is over.

Boundaries are a sign of emotional maturity, consideration and depth, as it requires a level of distress tolerance skills (slightly confrontational discussions are never comfortable or easy) and the ability to skilfully communicate your needs, without bulldozing the other person’s experience in the relationship. There are many ways I could have established that boundary. Let us explore some common approaches and unpack their positive and negative consequences, allowing you to evaluate how boundary setting will look for you, depending on your social environment and the capacity of the people around you.

There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to boundary setting, contrary to current popular opinion.

Option 1

“I’ve been feeling really unhappy with the recent focus on babies in our time together, and I feel like you aren’t making space for other things in our friendship. Can we please avoid talking about babies and motherhood for a while, until I let you know I’m ready for that stage of my life?”

Option 2

“I get really uncomfortable with conversations that focus on motherhood and having babies, and I know this is my stuff. I’ve had some recent trauma in that area and I’m trying to work through it, but in the meantime it would be really helpful if you could not bring up that topic, as it is triggering some strong emotions in me and I find myself withdrawing in our friendship. It is absolutely not you, and I need you to know that I love you and appreciate your enthusiasm about motherhood, I just can’t share that joy with you right now, and I’m very sorry about that.”

Option 3

[Friend brings up babies] - “I’m so glad you brought that up again, as I’ve been meaning to ask you if we could switch the focus of our conversations to some other topics, as I’ve noticed a lot of our time chatting has been focusing on motherhood. What else is going on with you? Any hobbies you are interested in pursuing these days?

Option 4

“Can we please not talk about that anymore? It makes me uncomfortable.”

Option 5

-Pause- “I’m not going to respond to you anymore when you bring up motherhood and child-rearing. If you continue to bring it up, I will stop talking to you and walk away. I hope you can understand that this is my boundary.”

Option 6

Say nothing. Do nothing. Just let it be.

And so on and so forth. Interestingly, these are all effective ways to set a boundary. However, there are multiple factors to consider when you decide on the approach you take to setting a boundary. I think most people envision option 5 when they picture setting a boundary with others, though I would argue that option is the most bullish, least skilful way to set a boundary, especially with a trusted, loved one. The factors that I hope you are taking into consideration when you explore setting a boundary with a friend or acquaintance are;

Their age - as this considers their generational understanding of appropriate behaviours in relationships. Setting a boundary with a 21 year old is very different to setting a boundary with a 60 year old.
Their level of emotional intelligence - some individuals have a deeper, more reflective capacity to hold space for your emotions and understanding their impact on you, while others can struggle with empathy and consequential thinking, showing a limited capacity for taking accountability or changing their behaviours to make space for your needs.
The duration and shared history in your relationship - is there established trust, have they shown you that they are reliable, trustworthy, kind and considerate? Do you care deeply for this friendship and wish to not only maintain it, but continue to grow it?
Your felt sense of safety with that person - can you converse with them and still feel safe? Do they let you speak without cutting you off? Do they use emotional manipulation, bullying, intimidation or gaslighting in conversations to avoid discussing their problems?
Cultural and Religious Obligations - we do not live in a vacuum, and there are broader cultural and religious communities that will be impacted by boundary setting in certain relationships, particularly parental ones. Sometimes we need to explore more skilful, nuanced ways of setting boundaries that respect our collectivist communities, while also addressing our individual needs.

Let’s play a little fun game, match the consideration to the option you would use in setting a boundary. E.g. for a culturally sensitive boundary, you could use option 3, or some variation of that. Write out how you would word your boundary.

Aside from these more personal considerations, I would also like you to reflect on whether this issue has actually been a recurring one, or is it just a once-off, fleeting occurrence? You need to track these perceptions with journaling or documentation, as the brain is very wont to warp reality and distort your perception of the frequency and duration of an event, particularly if the interaction is stressful or anxiety-provoking. It is not worth setting a boundary with a loved one if they are not repeating this pattern enough to warrant a conversation. We also need to acknowledge the space for thought challenging, cognitive reframing and personalised emotion regulation and self-soothing in our relationships. This is the space where grace enters a relationship, and you are allowed to let certain things go. Pick your battles wisely.

It is not always about OUR safety and OUR needs in relationships. We need to make room for our friends, colleagues, acquaintances and peers to express their wants, needs, feelings and interests in relationships. Not every encounter that leaves us feeling anxious or drained necessarily means the other has done something inappropriate.
This is a cognitive distortion called emotional reasoning, that claims “Because I feel anxious, they must have done something wrong. I need to set a boundary here”.

**The time to set a boundary is when you not setting the boundary will cause the relationship to wither and die.**

Boundaries are protective of relationships. Their function is to keep you interacting and engaging with the other, in a way that maintains your sense of safety, autonomy and respect. If we continue to make excuses for the other person, not acknowledging the way that interactions with them actually harm, deplete and disrespect us, not only are we causing harm to ourselves, but we are maintaining a friendship that maybe we should be walking away from. Boundaries are the ultimate test as to whether we keep working on the relationship, or we let it go. If I skilfully communicate my needs, how does the other respond? Do they escalate the behaviour?

The final form of boundary setting is saying nothing. Just letting time run its course and let the relationship slowly fade on its own. When the person on the other side is not responsive or capable of receiving your vulnerability, do not expose yourself to further harm by pouring your heart out to them. This is a good time for us to explore those options I listed above and the times you would use that boundary, and times when you absolutely should not use that boundary!

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

We are going to explore skilful ways of setting a boundary and how to improve your existing approaches to boundary setting.

Option 1

PROS - It is concise, validates your emotional experience, asks for the change in behaviour, lets her know we can go back to discussing the topic when I am ready.

CONS - Vague language used (‘for a while, when I’m ready’), assumes unfairly that the friend is not considering your needs in the relationship, prioritises your experience over your friend’s. This is not a very considerate approach, it is very self-focused.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Clearly state how long you need to avoid the topic, a few weeks, months? What are you doing to manage your emotions about the issue? Are you working on it? How will you honour your friend’s experience and interests too? Offer to talk about her own experiences alone, requesting gently that she stops asking you about your experience with the topic.

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: Friends, partners, siblings, trusted individuals, cousins, peers of a similar age, when there is no cultural obligation or religious context to consider.

Option 2

PROS - It provides greater context, considering your friend’s feelings and right to understand exactly why this issue needs to be avoided. It is very empathic and compassionate to your friend’s right to discuss things she is interested in at this time. It takes responsibility and ownership of the discomfort, rather than blaming it on the friend. It clearly outlines what you are doing to work through the issue, and places protecting the friendship as the centre of the discussion, over protecting your own emotions.

CONS - It still does not provide space in the relationship for the other’s needs, there is an element of over-explaining or over-justifying. It is fine line between providing context and trying to appease the other’s emotions by overly explaining how it is not their fault. Sometimes simple is better.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Be certain around how much you want to explain as to the context of this boundary being set, try to avoid over-explaining yourself. Offer some space for the friend to request space or time for their needs to be met.

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: Only with very close, loved ones who have established trust and can hear your vulnerability.

Option 3

PROS - It is concise, simple, protects your vulnerability by not acknowledging how it impacts you emotionally, changes the conversation which is a subtle, nuanced way of setting a boundary, without limiting the person that you can/cannot talk about this topic.

CONS - There is no emotional repair, as the core of the issue is not addressed.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Make sure to explore the emotional wound on your own, either with journaling, time with a psychologist or with a trusted friend. We cannot pretend the harm does not exist.

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: More distant relationships, people you do not see very often, elders who cannot be told what to do, or who struggle to understand the concept of a boundary.

Option 4

“Can we please not talk about that anymore? It makes me uncomfortable.”

PROS - Short, sweet, to the point. Addresses both the change in behaviour and the emotional wound.

CONS - Incredibly blunt, unskilful, does not consider the emotions of the other.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Reflect deeply on whether this is an appropriate boundary to set with the person you intend to use it with. Can the relationship sustain this kind of boundary, or will this be the final blow?

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: People who themselves utilise and respond to blunt, direct communication. Individuals without a capacity for empathy, emotional depth or vulnerability.

Option 5

PROS - Very assertive and clear communication, outlines the consequence to the boundary breach very overtly, outlines this is a boundary.

CONS - It is blunt, unskilful, does not consider the emotions of the other. Places the self at the centre of the relationship, disempowers the other as they are not given a chance to repair. This is the equivalent of an emotional choke-hold and submission in a relationship, rather than an attempt to repair or rebuild.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Soften the language, make room for the other person’s experience in the relationship, and their equal right to discuss topics they are interested in. De-centre yourself and centre the relationship in the conversation, utilising empathic statements and taking the perspective of your peer when utilising this boundary. Reflect deeply on whether this is an appropriate boundary to set with the person you intend to use it with.

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: More distant acquaintances, people who you may be forced to interact with like colleagues, unsafe individuals who utilise abusive and manipulative tactics in relationships to dominate your needs and emotions.

Option 6

Say nothing. Do nothing. Just let it be.

PROS - Saves you the emotional burden of managing the other person in the relationship.

CONS - Does not address the problem at all. This is the classic ‘sweep it under the carpet’ technique.

WAYS TO IMPROVE: Reflect deeply on whether this is an appropriate boundary to set with the person you intend to use it with. How are you addressing the wound, how is this protecting the relationship?

WHO TO USE THIS BOUNDARY WITH: Cultural or religiously protected relationships, like with elders. Individuals incapable of understanding emotional language or how their actions impact others. Individuals you do not feel safe with.

Poetic Reflections

“For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared,
with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence,
as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth:
and only the unprofitable is caught.

And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

‍ ‍

- Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

Thank you for reading.

All my very best,

Tala

Tala Mansour 8/5/26 Tala Mansour 8/5/26

The Psychology of Visibility and the Damage of Invisibility

Let us explore the importance being witnessed, seen and understood in healing our nervous systems and creating a meaningful shared experience of life, and how the opposite experience of invisibility is fundamentally damaging.

Happy Friday everyone. It is looking like I’ve fallen into a monthly rather than a weekly rhythm with these posts. Such is life. I shall turn this into a learning moment of adjusting your expectations to fit what is realistic for you, rather than condemn and shame yourself for not meeting an unrealistic standard you have set for yourself. Monthly it is! Hurrah for adaptability and down with perfectionism!

Many of my recent conversations with clients have focused on this experience in life of being witnessed and how this true experience of being witnessed leads to healing. This will be the focus of today’s post.

Think back to a time where you felt the most safe and connected with another person. Likely, your mind takes you back to an interaction where you are seen, actually seen by another person, and you feel a sense of acceptance, belonging and understanding that has only occurred because they witnessed you. They saw you exactly as you are, and did not reject, condemn or shame you. Your experience was accurately reflected back to you, and your nervous system could finally settle down. It felt safe, you were finally understood, you were accepted, you belonged.

I would like to invite you into an honest and critical reflection of why being witnessed doesn’t just feel good, but is fundamentally healing, and why the opposite experience of being dismissed, disregarded, forgotten, misunderstood and unseen is not just distressing or uncomfortable, but actually damages the soul and can even lead to cumulative traumatic presentations such as Complex PTSD and Adjustment Disorder.

Language has evolved alongside human communities, so that we can have a shared, meaningful experience and move collaboratively through life, understanding ourselves and the things that happen to us by echoing our experiences back and forth in conversation with words and with our bodies.

There is a loud bang, and a pre-verbal toddler looks to Mum to gauge whether we should run and cry, or if we are safe. Mum’s body looks safe and happy, so I am safe and happy. Meaning is formed.

Vice versa.

The toddler sees a cockroach and is curious! They pick it up, take it proudly to show Mum and she screams, and immediately the cute little bug becomes a frightening, terrifying, disgusting thing! Run and scream, just like Mum did. No words necessary to create a meaningful experience.

Now, add in the complexity of language, and we start to see how fundamentally life altering it can be to be either seen/understood or unseen/misunderstood by those we rely on to create a shared meaningful experience of our lives.

A young teenager fails her driving test, and tearfully shares her grief, sadness and disappointment in self with her mother. Her mother tells her daughter brightly, “Don’t be sad! You will take the test again and pass, it is no big deal!” Rather than witnessing and reflecting her daughter’s grief, she is unwittingly sending her the message ‘your experience of grief is wrong, stop feeling sad’. Often times, vulnerable teenagers will hear a statement like that and an old wound of “I’m wrong, I’m bad, I’m too much” can get activated. That one opportunity for connection over a normal human experience of disappointment and grief becomes a wound on top of many other wounds of not being seen, heard or understood.

Many people move through life feeling like only a certain version of themselves is worthy of being loved, because of such consistent conditioning as the above situation. When I succeed, when I am happy, when I have no problems, my family and parents reflect those emotions back to me, and I am safe, I am seen, I belong.

Yet, when I have the very normal experiences of sadness, grief, disappointment, frustration, anger, jealousy, and pain, those same loved and trusted people deny my reality, reflect back how I should change to be better, how I am ungrateful, how I should revert back to the happy version that they are able to understand. This complex emotional mess is not welcome here. This does not belong.

Is this experience sounding familiar? We are exploring the fundamental experience of feeling invisible. The whole complexity of your being feels like it is too much to be received by those you love, so you hide who you actually are, how you actually feel, only presenting the version that you have (painfully) learned over time will be accepted and not rejected. This experience of disconnection, in and of itself, is wounding, as our safety wholly depends on our connection with those around us.

Now, let us expand this from the individual level to the societal level.

A great way of understanding the damage of invisibility is to explore the role that societal structures play in systematically excluding or misrepresenting a group of people from the shared narrative of life, portraying an experience through dominant cultural perspectives, which is fundamentally damaging as the above process of feeling misunderstood, unseen, unheard, now becomes amplified on a societal level, and the selective expression of self continues.

“It hurts when the things people were once shamed, punished, or excluded for suddenly become trendy when used by someone with more social power.”
- unknown

Think about the harm that cultural appropriation can cause to entire peoples. Traditions, norms, and practices are often dismissed, disrespected, misunderstood, or misrepresented. This is especially evident in some areas of Western psychology, where ancient healing practices are frequently detached from their cultural contexts, with little acknowledgement of their spiritual, religious, and sacred origins, reducing them instead to accessible, and at times “trendy” tools for wellbeing.

Consider mindfulness, now one of the most widely used and recommended techniques by psychologists, presented to clients with often no reference to the meaningful framework of the Buddhist origins of the practice, and how it relates to their spiritual practice of seeking liberation from suffering through enlightenment (Nirvana) by ethically working towards developing a state of self-insight and awareness, outlined in the Satipatthana Sutta by Buddha.

At the same time, psychologists will eagerly reference Francine Shapiro and the theoretical foundations of EMDR therapy. This is not a critique of that practice, but rather an invitation to notice this broader pattern, that even within systems aimed at healing, dominant Western frameworks often determine whose knowledge is named, credited, and centred, while the origins of other healing traditions are minimised, secularised, or left unspoken.

Why is it that some cultural practices are welcomed in one context but rejected in another? These questions matter because they invite reflection on how practices are adopted, transformed, and sometimes stripped of their original meaning when moved across cultural boundaries, and how this practice can further alienate an already alienated people.

This is not to suggest that all use of cultural practices is harmful, but to ask whether we are attentive to context, history, and power. When practices are separated from their cultural and spiritual roots without acknowledgement, there is a risk of reducing rich traditions to consumable techniques, while the communities they originate from continue to face marginalisation or misrepresentation.

How many of you know the name Sir Isaac Newton, founder of the laws of physics. Now, how many of you know the name of the author of one of the most widely used mathematical branches, Algebra? His name is Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi. There is also a broader historical pattern in how knowledge is remembered. Many scientific and mathematical contributions from the Islamic Golden Age, for example, were transmitted into Europe through translation, where names were often Latinised or reshaped:

Ibn Sina → Avicenna

Ibn Rushd → Averroes

Abu Bakr al-Razi → Rhazes

Ibn al-Haytham → Alhazen

Jabir ibn Hayyan → Geber

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi → Tusi

Abu Rayhan al-Biruni → Alberuni

Al-Zahrawi → Abulcasis

Thabit ibn Qurra → Thebit

Al-Kindi → Alkindus

These scholars made foundational contributions to mathematics, medicine, philosophy, and astronomy, yet their histories are forgotten in mainstream narratives of scientific development. Yet, names such as Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison are burned into our collective memories. This is not accidental, but an intentional framing of our shared collective history, amplifying certain perspectives and realities over others.

In Australia, this conversation also sits within a specific historical context. The White Australia policy only formally ended just 53 years ago, and the ongoing impacts of colonisation continue to shape the lived realities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities today. Australia is a multicultural society, but not one that is free from structural and interpersonal racism.

Where to from here? Toward greater understanding.

This reflection is not an attack of individuals or cultures, but an invitation to awareness. Ignorance is not always intentional, but it can still have consequences. Taking time to understand the people, histories, and meanings behind practices we use or encounter matters.

Consider how different it is to live in a society that reflects your cultural reality back to you, compared to one where your language, practices, or beliefs are unfamiliar or misrepresented. Then consider how it feels when those same practices are adopted without the context in which they carry meaning, care, or even sacred significance.

At its heart, this is also about recognition: being seen, being named, and having one’s experience accurately understood. Even small acts of awareness, such as naming origins, acknowledging histories, and holding complexity, can be healing and meaningful.

For psychologists and practitioners, this points to an ongoing ethical responsibility: to remain curious about cultural context, to broaden the range of intellectual and healing traditions we engage with, and to ensure that the knowledge we draw upon is not only used, but also respectfully situated. Ultimately, this is not about exclusion. It is about making space for a more honest and relational understanding of where knowledge comes from, and who it belongs to.

On an individual level, it is an invitation to explore how we interact with one another interpersonally. How are my own cultural biases, perceptions and expectations of self informing my response to this person, and if I focus on understanding their experience with curiosity, openness and acceptance, how might I focus on amplifying their experience over my own comfort?

Poetic Reflections

""Human Beings are members of a whole

In creation of one essence and soul

If one member is inflicted with pain

Other members uneasy will remain

If you have no sympathy for human pain

The name of human you can not pertain"

‍ ‍

- Saadi Shirazi, Golestan

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

Since we have made beautiful reference to the mindfulness practices of the Eastern Philosophical practice of Buddhism, let us understand why awareness of our present moment can help us transcend unhelpful narratives of suffering, and move ever closer to an experience of enlightment.

Mindfulness as part of Buddhism encourages;

awareness of the body
awareness of feelings
awareness of mind
awareness of mental objects (thoughts, perceptions, phenomena)

This means purposely turning your attention aware from the stories that our minds create, and noticing the moment to moment sensations, emotions and thoughts.

Slow everything down. Turn your attention first to the sensations within and without your body. Notice the rise and fall of your breath. Notice the clothes on your skin. Notice the impermanence of each of these sensations. How hard you have to work in your mind to hold these sensations in mind, though you are feeling them every minute of every day. Notice your brain’s tendency to try to place a value judgement on these sensations as good, bad, pleasant, unpleasant. Notice that urge, then objectively and neutrally observe the sensations from a place of pure consciousness, not driven by any expectation or value placed on the sensation.
Now, repeat this awareness to your emotions. What feelings are present for you in this moment, and same thing. Notice if you wish to react or judge the emotional experiences, welcoming one and rejecting another. Notice the urge to react, then mindfully observe the emotions purely as they are. Notice their impermanence. Notice their presence. Notice how they shift over time.
Now, to the mind, with all of its internal experiences of thoughts, perceptions, projected sensations in the head, trying to maintain the same awareness of judgements and reactions to thoughts. Just allow them to be. Notice their impermanence. Notice their presence.

The beauty of Buddhist practices lies in connecting thoughtfully with your experiences, working towards ego diffusion and experiencing life without judgement, attachment or reaction, thereby allowing life to move through you and accessing an increased level of self-awareness, consciousness and subsequently, peace.

Thank you for reading.

All my very best,

Tala

Tala Mansour 10/4/26 Tala Mansour 10/4/26

Disconnected in the Diaspora

Find ways to heal collectively as you navigate the unique pain of living as a disconnected individual in the diaspora.

Take a long, deep breath with me. Feel your chest rise. Close your eyes. Pause at the point of tension at the top. Slowly release and hear the air escape your lungs, like the gentle rush of an ocean wave. Make yourself a warm drink. Sit outside in the sun if you can, or in your comfiest chair. Let us begin, slowly and together.

Read my last post, A Message of Hope, to gain some context and insight into the post for this week. Flick on the news, and it will give you even more context to the post for this week. To be disconnected in the diaspora… it is a statement that is true on so many levels. Disconnected from homeland, disconnected from family, from language, culture and heritage.

Not only are you disconnected from your country of origin and all that gave you a stable sense of identity, but you also feel disconnected from the place you currently occupy, mingling with people who have regulated nervous systems while yours is in constant disarray. Interacting with people who care, but struggle to understand the depth of the collective grief and pain you are carrying, the perpetual fear and stress of living in a safe place, while everything you love and hold dear is on the verge of destruction.

You feel invisible, alone… disconnected.

What does it mean to live in the diaspora while you witness atrocities being committed in your home country, in the home country of the person you love, of a friend, of a colleague? To live the life of an immigrant is to live a life of perpetual disconnection, uprooted from the place that your nervous system has learned to organise itself around… all the familiar sights, smells and sounds.

To be born in the diaspora is to know a different flavour of the pain of disconnection from birth, never fully belonging here nor there. Never having had access to a sense of self that was organised around a familial, ancestral history - losing the opportunity to place yourself in the contextual story of where you come from.

You were born never knowing the stability of a nervous system that was raised in a network of connectedness, with a sense of genuine belonging found in seeing faces similar to yours, hearing a language that is music to your heart, and walking through a land you know your ancestors walked through for hundreds of years.

Identity helps us organise the chaos of the world into a stable, manageable story. When identity is threatened or dismantled through years of discrimination, lack of representation or dismissal, you never really had access to the stability and security that identity has to offer.

Knowing that all immigrants carry within them an inexpressible grief, and yet also being obligated to fulfil the obligations asked of them in the everyday routine of work, life, home, kids, family… To know that you are unsettled, no matter where you are in the world, because nowhere equates to home. Your body resides in one physical space, while your heart lives overseas with people and places you no longer have access to. Your eyes see a landscape that your head calls home, but your body rejects with every cell, knowing that the trees are not right, the air does not smell the same, and the earth beneath your feet does not hold the same warmth.

I say all of this to take a moment to witness your pain.
I acknowledge your grief.
I am here to tell you, you are not alone.

Close to 900,000 people (Ref. 1) in the Australian population count themselves as part of the Middle-Eastern Diaspora, and while it is hard to give an exact number of total displaced people in the world, it is well within the tens of millions and is constantly growing.

As we evolved to live in communities, we found there was more safety in numbers, and our nervous systems too adopted the baseline state of

“surrounded by loved ones = safety”

“disconnected from loved ones = threat/danger”.

This is why we see toddlers cry when their mother strays too far away, or we feel a terrifying drop in our stomach when we realise that we have hurt someone we love. It is not just the emotional experience of fear or grief, it is an entire nervous system in your body organising around this perceived sense of threat.

Now, add into this thousands of kilometres of distance, a different time zone and bombs being dropped on those very same people you love, and you will start to get an inkling into the kind of disorganised, frantic chaos that ensues within the nervous system.

Let’s unpack this together and explore what we can do as a collective in the diaspora, to challenge the permeating feelings of isolation, disconnection and a perpetually activated, hypervigilant nervous system.

How our nervous systems organise in unpredictability, perpetual threat and invisibility

Chronic Activation (sympathetic) - a chronically activated nervous system in survival mode burns through internal resources at an incredibly rapid rate. Cortisol, adrenaline and tension weaves its way through your body, eating up precious energy reserves and keeping you primed for reaction and response at any moment. This pattern of hypervigilance, scanning and general anxiety at anything going bad at any time is often coded from a very young age, especially when your parents are likely carrying undiagnosed PTSD and themselves have an activated, reactive and explosive nervous system that is constantly tense.
Numbness and physical collapse (parasympathetic)- when you have spent enough time in the first phase of chronic activation, the body goes into a very wise and adaptive mode called dorsal vagal shutdown. This is where the body tries to conserve energy as it has recognised that the threat is not resolving with our fight-flight responses. Some people experience this as a form of depression, but it is not an endogenous dopaminergic issue, it is a very adaptive response to an environment where the threat is real and constant, and somehow you have to keep moving forward and operating. It dulls your emotions, it is harder to access your thoughts and grief, you find yourself less energetic and unable to motivate yourself to engage in activities, tasks and relationships that normally brought you joy. You don a mask, so everyone experiences you as ‘normal’, but really you have withdrawn into a hollow, empty version of yourself. This is involuntary and highly protective.
Tonic Immobility (in between) - this state is a rare and often last resort survival response, when the threat is real and perceived as internalised panic and fear (high internal sympathetic activation) with a motor-inhibition mode activated (the body freezes, shut down, cannot move or speak). This is different to the physical collapse state above, as that has a dissociative effect from your emotions, while tonic immobility results in an awareness of how terrified you are inside, while your body operates in a frozen, shut down or physiological disconnection.

What can we do about it, from both a nervous system and a meaningful perspective?

1. Rhythmic group movement (dance, dabke, circle movement)

Regulates sympathetic arousal through rhythm, synchrony, and predictable repetition
Helps discharge mobilised energy (fight/flight) safely in community
Rebuilds a felt sense of “we move together, we are not alone”
Especially powerful for trauma held in the body (implicit memory)

2. Communal chanting, Qur’an recitation, or collective singing

Regulates tonic immobility and dissociation by re-engaging voice, breath, and timing
Activates ventral vagal pathways through prosody, rhythm, and co-regulated sound
Restores a sense of presence without exposure
The shared vocal field reduces isolation and invisibility

3. Story circles (witnessed storytelling)

Directly heals the wound of invisibility and un-witnessed experience
Integrates fragmented memory by putting experience into language with a witness
Supports transition out of dorsal vagal shutdown through meaning and connection
Key outcome: “I am seen, and I survive being seen”

4. Shared meals and embodied hospitality rituals

Regulates dorsal vagal collapse through safe co-regulation, presence, sensory activation, and establishment of routine
Re-establishes cues of safety (smell, taste, repetition, predictability)
Restores basic nervous system signals: “I can receive without danger”
Especially reparative for deprivation and displacement histories

5. Collective prayer and ritual synchronisation (structured spiritual practice)

Integrates all three states through structured rhythm, meaning, and co-regulation
Standing, bowing, breathing, and timing create somatic containment for dysregulation
Supports transition from chaos to order, being able to find surrender in a regulated way
Reinforces identity continuity: “I belong to something larger that holds me”

Core principle across all 5 skills:

Healing happens more effectively through co-regulation and nervous systems that regulate each other, and less through individual regulation, especially when there has been:

helpless witnessing
fragmentation of identity
chronic invisibility
collective threat or exile

In the context of the diaspora, the nervous system doesn’t just need to feel calm and regulated, it needs to access a sense of belonging that is embodied, rhythmic, and witnessed.

Poetic Reflections

"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being

The more joy you can contain"

‍ ‍

- Khalil Gibran

Therapeutic Skill of the Week

Humming and singing as part of the vagus nerve activation. This is done best as a collective practice, so grab a family member or a friend, hold hands and pick a song to sing together.

Focus on the vibrations dancing between your two bodies, close your eyes and hear the harmony of the melodies, and know that the vibrations are embracing your nervous system, they do not just dissipate into the air.

The song regulates you, and if you pick a song with meaningful lyrics that touch your heart and strike hope into life, then all the better.

Thank you for reading.

With light, love and hope.

All my very best,

Tala

References

Australian Bureau of Statistics : Census of Population and Housing: Cultural diversity data summary, 2021" (XLSX). Abs.gov.au. Retrieved 26 July 2022.