Therapist to Therapist: Dr. Saliha Afridi

Hello everyone, welcome to the Said in Therapy Podcast. Have you ever considered going to therapy and you ended up not going? My question is why? In my humble opinion, I believe everyone can benefit from therapy. In fact, I believe everybody should go at least once in their life.

My name is Iman Tohami, and I'm a psychologist. This podcast tells you all about everyday cases with everyday people who have everyday problems and difficulties, and sometimes they carry around really deep wounds. These are their stories.

So I don't want to make this too long of an intro. I wanted to let you know that I have been working on a segment that is new to the podcast. I want to call it therapist to therapist.

And the idea is basically, as the name says, I want to invite other therapists to have a conversation with me and share their experiences with all of us because I believe it's very interesting to get an insight into the other side of therapy.

So not only patient points of view, but also the points of view of the therapist. The first guest I invited for this segment is Dr. Saliha Afridi. I'm super excited that she agreed to do this interview with me.

She has one of the which I believe most interesting profiles on the internet, and I will leave her handles handles in the description. Please follow her if you haven't already. And yeah, I really don't want to build up the suspense.

It was, you know, one of the conversations I really enjoyed, and I really hope that you will enjoy it too. So here we go.

So I will let her introduce herself because, as I told you many times, I believe everyone has their own story, and you are the one who can tell your own story the very best. So here we go. Thank you so much for participating and being part of the podcast.

Thank you, Iman. So my name is Dr. Saliha Afridi. I'm a clinical psychologist and the managing director of the Lighthouse Arabia, which is a community mental health and wellness center in Umsu Kim, Dubai, UAE. I'm also a mother of four children and a wife and a daughter.

And all of those things are very much at play right now. So I have to mention them since we are all quite um it's quite indoors and quite together for the last nine months. So very much I feel you.

Yes, so very much a clinical psychologist, managing director, mother, wife, daughter at the moment.

Very impressive. Very impressive. So, yes, as we discussed before, I just want to uh tell everybody else who's listening. A couple of years ago, I was actually thinking about all the stories I took home or the moments that inspired me when I was with my patients in session.

And I actually thought, wow, there must be so many others like me in my profession who actually felt the same. And when I started asking, this was actually the case. And then I realized I really want to make this a segment on my podcast where I discuss moments like that with my colleagues and maybe hear what they learned throughout their careers and on their journeys.

Because as you said before, we are not only therapists, we are also people, and we have so many roles to fill. And it's actually amazing that you mentioned that without me asking. So I wanted to know. I think, do you have a moment throughout your career that really stuck out and did something to you or for you?

You know, Iman, I think about this every single day. I think about this question every single day. And I can only say that I came into this career starting as a student in my doctoral program, and that was probably 20 years ago, let's just say, somewhere around that time.

Yes. And since then, every single day has been something that has changed me or moved me. And I'm not being um I'm not exaggerating by any means. I think if uh something didn't move me, if something didn't touch me, if something didn't uh teach me, then I would stop doing this thing.

Because for me it's very much about uh having my heart and my spirit be engaged in life. And if my heart and my spirit is not engaged in my vocation, my profession, then there is no way I can be in this uh in this line of work.

So yeah, there are days where I am totally spent and I feel exhausted, but there's never been a day since that day that I stepped foot into my program that I have not been moved by something or someone.

So just to give us some context, you didn't grow up in the UAE and you didn't study in the UAE, as far as I understand.

Yes, so I was born in Pakistan and I left Pakistan when I was eight years old and I moved to the United States, and I stayed in the United States until 12 years ago. Um, in between, my father did move and we, you know, shifted a little bit here and there when it moved to Malaysia.

Uh, but I did my undergraduate and my graduate studies in the United States, and then I moved to the UAE 12 years ago, and the lighthouse was founded nine years ago. So, what was the idea behind the lighthouse?

So that's a little bit of a story. Um, but the story did start when I first landed here. Um, and I was very clear about my intention of moving to this part of the world. Um, and that intention clearly set in um when I first started working here.

I realized that there was just not a lot of parenting education happening here, and I felt like if you want to change the world, you change the future, you change the future, which is the children, you change the children by talking to the parents.

And so for me, this was really about changing the world, you know, in in my way. And I started doing that, and I was working at a private practice in Dubai, and I just found that there were some things that are happening within that private practice that were just inconsistent with my values, which mostly had to do with financials, and I just didn't feel um as financially driven, I guess.

And so uh for me, each client was a person, and each person was not just a file, and you know, it was just the language uh people were using within that clinic, and how many clients did you see in the sense of how much money did you make?

And so it was very much financially oriented, and I just felt that it was just not consistent with why I had done, had gotten into this in the first place. Another thing that was inconsistent with my values was that we were just not doing enough community work.

And for me, this really was the driving force, which sort of set me out on my hero's journey. And that journey was to find a place where I could actually speak about um mental health and destigmatize it and raise awareness and where can I do that?

And so I started interviewing everywhere under the sun. Actually, I went to airlines, I went to hospitals, I went to schools, and everywhere I went, I felt like there was some sort of red tape or blue tape or yellow tape that I needed to cut through in order for me to actually do that kind of teaching.

I had to get all kinds of approvals, I had to get all kinds of permissions, and it was just not me with the community. And so eventually I just sort of threw it out to the universe and said, God, you know my intention, you know what I want.

I want to be part of this community, I want to educate, I want to raise awareness, I want us to all learn and grow together. So I just leave it with you. And at three, four months down the road, I was sitting at a dinner party.

And at that dinner party, I was sitting next to a person, and that person um asked me what I did for a living, and I told him, and he said, Oh, you know, you're a psychologist. And you know, everybody kind of looks at you a little bit funny when you sit at a dinner party as a psychologist.

Um, so yeah, he did give me that. Oh, okay. I was like, Oh God, please don't make me do any sort of therapeutic work. I'm just here for dinner. And it was not a work-related dinner, but we ended up talking and he asked me about grief.

He said, Tell me about grief. And I told him about grief and whatever I could in, like, you know, two minutes. And I said, Why don't we meet outside of here? And when I meet you outside of here, I will tell you what I know about grief and and and I will share that with you.

So we met over the course of the next couple of weeks, um, about five to seven hours, and I told him everything I knew about grief and death and dying and bereavement and complicated grief and and. And eventually after the end of that, you know, five, seven hours, he told me that he it was a very strange feeling that he had, which was that he felt such a regret and such a relief at the same time.

And that regret and relief came from him knowing that. Um, so he told me um that he um his relationship, his marriage had dissolved as a result of him not being able to support his partner uh as she lost the death, um as she experienced the death of her mother due to a terminal illness.

Okay.

And that terminal illness um, you know, really obviously impacted his partner, his wife. And he was just saying all the things that you shouldn't say to someone who is grieving. Come on, it's been two months, you know, you need to get over it.

She's with God, she's in a better place, she's all these, all the things we say with very, very good intentions, but she but he said it in a way of just come on, you need to get on with it, get on with life.

And that was just very, very hurtful. It just drew a wedge between them. That wedge got bigger and the marriage ended. And he said, if I had known what you told me in these five, seven hours, I would have dealt with it differently.

I would have known that this is a journey, this is a lifelong journey. Grief is not something you get over, grief is something you learn to live with, etc., etc. He said, I didn't know these things. So he said, Why don't you tell all these other people the same thing that I have?

These five people that are in my life that have experienced death, I want you to tell them what you told me just now. So I sat with these five people and I told them the same thing. And um, they all had lost a mother, father, brother, sister, you know, they had had deaths in their family dating back even 20 years, and they all felt such a huge relief, a sadness, a regret, all sorts of feelings that

I did. I thought I was being ungrateful to God. I thought I was questioning God's will. We have all these weird ideas in our head about how I should do grief. And so they said, thank you so much, but now we want you to do this for the community.

I didn't know that these people were very sort of connected, powerful people within the community when I was speaking to them. And they said, we want a community initiative that we want to do as part of our, you know, this kind of foundation group that they were running.

Um, and so we want you to be the one to go around teaching people how to do grief because everyone knows how to do life, but no one knows how to do death. No one knows how to die gracefully or support people that have, you know, experienced a loss to death.

Um, and so if you can do that, then we would be able to support the community in a massive kind of way. I said, sure. So eventually I went, I traveled, I learned more about grief, and I came back and I gave them a proposal.

And in that proposal, I gave them three options. One was to go to hospitals and do grief work there because that's where people are going to die, and I will be there to support the people, but I just know the bureaucracy related to hospitals and how do you rent a room and and and so it just was going to be a process.

But I told them that if anyone can do it, I can. The second one was going to be that I would be working in the same place that I was working at at that time, but they would need to pay him and they would need to rent me a room because the clinic was very small and he was not going to let me do any work for free.

So that was also going to be an option. Um, and then the third thing was that um I could take whatever money they had budgeted for this initiative of theirs, and I would just have them ask me, because they were going to give me like a monthly stipend type of thing.

And whatever budget they had allotted, I would like to pay them. I would like to have them pay me three years upfront. And with that three years upfront, I would actually then um go ahead and start a private practice.

And in that private practice, I would house these grief services, such as support groups and one-on-one consultations on how to do grief. And um, and that would go on as long as the private practice was around. And so that was about 11 years ago that we had this conversation.

And so their three-year investment has now almost lasted a decade. And um, and that's how the lighthouse started is we consider ourselves to be a um a social enterprise. We are very much a business, uh, but our business is to raise awareness.

And everyone who is part of the team actually is very much committed to working for free. So that just is part of your contract that you do work for free. And mostly that work will come in the shape of support groups, it will come in the shape of uh doing webinars and um, you know, and doing these one-on-one consultations.

And so that's basically the story of the Lighthouse and my life journey. And that was about a decade ago, and now we are one of the largest centers in uh the UAE for sure, but even within the region.

And um, we have a lot of trust from our community because we have kept our intention very, very clean um since the very beginning.

That's so wonderful. I I was always inspired by that story, and I remember when I first heard about the lighthouse, I was like, wow, I really want to do something similar or I want to work with them. But then unfortunately, um I left the country, so I never had the chance to reach out to you.

But I I guess I always wanted to tell you how much I love the story behind this. Obviously, I always read a little bit here and there, but uh it's really impressive what you were able to build in the last couple of years.

Um, I think my you're welcome. I think my my next question would be, or just to give you a little bit of context here. Um, when I first started my career, I was so young and I was so motivated, and I thought, oh my god, I have all these skills and tools now, and I will help all these people, and they really need help.

And I was so convinced that people actually only needed love to get better and um find within them who they want to be and how they can be their best selves, the most authentic selves. So I went into a therapy session in the very beginning, and then there was this person who actually told me not everyone with potential is destined to be something in life.

And that really stuck with me because I realized, okay, I cannot help someone who doesn't want to be helped. And by that, I need to accept that I cannot help everyone. And this was really for me such a hard pill to swallow.

And I'm curious, do you have similar experiences that happened throughout your career? And as I said, you don't need to talk about specific cases, but maybe just those moments that made you realize things.

Well, I had a similar conversation, but I I I I maybe disagree with that statement slightly. But my my my learning came with um I was working at a school for behaviorally disordered children, and um I had a beautiful supervisor, and he um, you know, and every day, and I was pregnant, and it was just like I wanted to save all these kids, and I wanted to take them home and like you know, start a school

or start a home for all these kids that were just getting selected at home. And he told me that please don't flatter yourself in the sense that you think that you are here to help people. You are not here to help them, they can help themselves, and they your job is to support them for as long as you are part of their journey, to teach them, to companion them, to witness them, to support them, but definitely

not to help them. Do not help anyone who can help themselves because then you actually handicap them. And that was a huge shift for me is that how do I, and so I've never actually considered myself to be in a helping profession or helping my children.

I don't help people, I sit with you, I learn with you, I coach you, I know, I teach you what I know, but in the end, you can only help yourself. And that's the bottom line. And so for me, I think it's a different type of frame.

I do believe that everyone that has been put here on earth should fulfill their potential. And we need to just get rid of the blocks. And that's my job. My job is to help you identify and overcome or manage the blocks, but in the end, you're gonna do the work.

Yes, I very much agree with that. And when you think back, I mean, obviously, you mentioned before that that you have been in this profession for a very long time. When you look back, what would you tell yourself to that version of you who just started studying for whatever reason?

We always start uh a specific major with an intention, or maybe we are just curious. I'm just thinking a lot about that person who started when I was so young, and obviously today I'm not completely someone else, but I have developed so much.

So, in a sense, I am a different person. And if I could back, I I actually would try to tell myself so many things, but then at the same time, I don't want to disrupt the journey. But I guess my question to you is what would you tell yourself if you had the opportunity to go back?

Um, if I could go back, I would probably say, um you're on the right track. Keep going. This is, you know, and keep doing what you are doing, which is, you know, I moved into psychology after having studied cultural anthropology and um, you know, media communications, and um, and I was uh my first job was in a marketing career.

So I was working for a marketing firm and that's what I was doing. And then I decided one day with an epiphany that I had, like a lightning bolt that hit my head, that I don't want to do this, like this isn't meaningful.

Like I'm selling things to people they don't need, and I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. How can I like how how can this be it? So I had like a midlife crisis, but it was a quarter life crisis because I was probably around 25 when that happened, or actually I was 23 when that happened.

Um, and at 23, I said, I walked into my boss's office. I said, you know what? I have to quit. And he was like, What are you saying? Because I was like a rising star in that company. And what are you doing?

This is you're ruining your life, and you have such a future. And I said, I don't want a future in something that I just don't believe in. And so I walked out and my dad was like, Oh my God, what is she up to now?

And I remember saying, I need to be a dentist because I want to be a dentist because I wanted to go into international business, which is what my father does, but um, because I was definitely my father's daughter, but then Realized okay, business is not for me, and I need to do something.

And my first job, my very, very, very first job was in a dental clinic, and I just liked working and said, and the woman was able to manage her own schedule. And I said, if I ever have a family, it will be good for me to just have a private practice where I can manage my own schedule and I'm gonna be a dentist.

So I started my pre-like uh you know, preliminary sort of studies for dentistry, and I remember sitting in a chemistry class and thinking, uh-uh, heck no, this is not it. And so I walked out feeling quite discouraged, saying, actually, I don't think I want to be a dentist.

Like, I don't want to be in people's mouths all the time where I don't get to talk to people. I actually want to hear what they have to say. And so I remember standing with my sister, as if this was yesterday, my older sister, and saying, she said, What do you like?

I said, I like people. You know, I studied cultural anthropology. I think I was like one of two people that studied that that year. But I really am interested in people and stories and cultures, and I just really like people and I want to do something where I am caring for them in some way.

He said, That sounds like a psychologist. And I remember in my undergraduate year, that was the one class that I hated the most was abnormal psychology. I was like, oh my God, this is so boring and this is so dull.

Like, I do not want to study this. And I never took another psychology class in my undergraduate. And so I walked away from that, didn't have anything to do with psychology. I don't want anything to do with that.

And I literally went and I did everything other than psychology in my undergrad. And I, and I don't know why, but I guess I was ready for that. And I said, Yeah, I think so. I think I'm gonna, I'm gonna try it.

And so again, I think I've always just kept my um myself. I've never felt like I needed to make a commitment. And maybe that's why what I would have gone back and told that girl who was in her graduate studies, um, just listen to that voice that says, no, this isn't it.

Because that voice has never been wrong. It has led me into all kinds of trouble because, you know, one day I'm going into marketing and now all of a sudden I've shifted into dentistry. The next day I'm doing something else, and the next day I'm doing, okay, yeah, that doesn't for as a parent, I imagine my mom and dad probably are like, oh my God, what's going on with this child?

But but it's just it's always been true. And it's always right. And every little turn that I took in life, whether it was a right turn or a left turn or a wrong turn, I feel that those turns have led me to where I am today.

So what I would just go back and tell that person, even though she would not have heard me in this way that I am speaking, because she was just a little bit more stubborn at that time and she felt like she knew everything.

Um, I would say just keep doing exactly what you're doing. And I would say, make more mistakes, keep curious, and um, and you will eventually find your way. That's beautiful.

You are actually quite active on social media, which I really like. The stories you share or the videos you make are so beneficial. And I actually encourage everyone to check out your Instagram account, um, which I will check below in the description box.

But not so long ago, I think two weeks maximum, it was about the Carl Gustav Jung Institute in Switzerland. And I was like actually so surprised because it was not the regular mental health um post that you see on the platform.

And I'm just curious, why did you post it?

Um, well, in my in my social media account, you hear a lot about my story. You hear a lot about my journey. And I think my journey is archetypal, it's not special in any way. It's the story that all of us have living inside of us that we go through phases in our life and we go through stages in our life, and we have troubles that are brought our way, we have sadness and loss and grief

that is brought our way. And I want people to know that this is my story, and it is in theirs in my story, they see their story. And so that's one thing. And I think for me, um, I think in that post, I speak about individuation.

And the journey into the Carl Jung uh Carl Jung Institute in Zurich was a very long journey. It was, you know, two years of thought, one year of dabbling with it, and then moving in and um and saying, all right, I think I'm gonna go into formal training to be an analyst here.

Um and I'm still, you know, and then COVID happened, and so I'm only a year in my training, um, and I have a long way to go. But this is basically me saying that part of that individuation for me is that I will always keep learning and that I will always um keep on a path that really peels away the layers of expectations of what people might have, and more and more step into my power, and

more and more step into my truth. And so I think people find um there's something very, very comforting, I think, for people to know that okay, here's a psychologist, and okay, she has people within this community, and then she is a mother and she's a parenting expert, and and and and oh look, she has times where she loses her temper, or oh look, she's still studying, or oh look, she's you know, still struggling, and oh look,

and so for me, it really is normalizing life because I think too many people have too many, too many ideas about what life should be, and they're really not right ideas, actually. They're actually quite um a quite a little microscopic moment of an idea where they might think that this person's life is perfect and everything they project is perfect, and so for me, it really is sharing some of that journey with them and maybe inspiring them

or encouraging them or um yeah, encouraging them mainly.

That's so nice. I uh I gotta be honest with you. Um I am not the biggest fan of psychoanalysis for so many reasons, but I am always uh it doesn't mean that I'm opposed to it or that I don't listen to it or that I get inspired by it myself, but I'm always I think in a way want to understand what drives my colleagues to go into that direction.

And I think this is basically why I asked you also this question, because I believe very much of what we do in our careers, but also in life, or especially in life, is basically inspired by the thing that we want to become eventually.

I always used to say, um, we become what we love, everything else is just movement. And when I looked at your profile, I always felt like, okay, wow, she is in a transition to something else. And I really like that about it, um, about the whole profile, because so many things on social media are so curated and planned out.

And with you, I always had the feeling you're just speaking your mind, you're just speaking your truth. And even when you go on um on your stories or when you share a video, it's it's yes, maybe it's planned out and you know what you want to talk about, but so much of it, the essence of it, it really comes across as though it's basically you who is speaking and no one else.

You're not just putting on a mask and trying to portray something that you're not, you are speaking as you. And I think this is something that really comes across and it's really, really nice.

Well, I'm happy to hear that, Iman. And I would not speak, I think what what people resonate with is that there is no hierarchy here. Yes, I know a little bit more because I've studied and I've read and things, but my experience is very much the same as someone else's experience.

Yes. And I my and not just my knowledge, but like my struggle is very much real. Like I have not overcome anything. I am still in the thick of it. And you know, today I had a meltdown, and yesterday I felt burned, you know, like I was in burnout over the summer.

Like it can be that this is what's happening, and no matter what you know, you will still have hardship and you will still have struggle. And I speak from that place. I speak from a place of someone who's actually gone through it, someone who has a shadow and a dark side, someone who loses her temper, someone who can be very unkind sometimes, someone who is not a very, you know, put together parent at times.

I speak from that place because that place is a very real place for me. I'm not um I haven't conquered any of this stuff. I'm still in. Yes.

Wow. Um, I think to just end that session, and uh I want to well, I want to ask you one last question. How is your heart today?

Ah my heart, my heart is full today. My heart um feels very grateful today. Wednesdays are team um days where we meet with the team. And I'm always just, you know, we even though it's on Zoom, I'm just always just so um, I'm so full of awe every time I see my team that there's a group of people who believe in this mission and this vision and um and that are willing to give of their heart

and soul and show up every day and do the work that is of the light worker. And um, and I still I um on Wednesdays, I usually am just humbled and grateful and appreciative. Um, but yeah, that's how I feel today.

That's so nice. Uh Dr. Saliha, I I thank you so much for being again part of this podcast. I was very excited um to be recording with you today, and I really hope that people can take something from your story and be inspired by it, because there is no straight line in your journey, it's always zigzag, and sometimes you go in loops and you have to go back two steps and then one step forward.

And I think the way you just explain your own story, it's very much reminding everyone of that who's listening to your story, and I think that's really beautiful.

And you know, one last thing, Iman, and you know, Steve Jobs said that imagine that life is like a series of dots. These moments are a whole bunch of dots and nothing makes sense, but eventually these dots will connect.

And so you don't know what you're doing when you're doing it, but if you feel right doing it, then do it. And there were times where I felt right being a real estate agent. I was a real estate agent, I was a personal trainer in the gym, I was you know, working in a dentist's office, I was, and so when it if it feels right in that moment, then it is right for you for that moment,

but that moment is not forever. And so you might decide two months down the line that that is no longer for you, but trust me that there has been something good that has come out of this, just like when Steve Jobs actually took calligraphy classes and he sat at the back and like, you know, wanted to learn.

He just took them because he was interested. So being serious about life rather than thinking you have to have it planned out. For me, I tell people today, if my heart is not in doing what I'm doing, I promise you I will leave and I will go do something else because maybe I'm done with what I'm supposed to be doing, at least for now.

So don't take it so seriously and conclusively and um as if this is the beginning and the end of it all. It isn't, it's just for now.

Yes, I agree. Again, thank you so much for being part of this podcast.

And yes, I hope to talk to you very soon. Thank you. Thank you for having me, man.

Hey, thank you so much for tuning in, and hopefully you will tune in again next week. It will be another episode talking to or about clients of mine, and you can find us on social media on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.

The handle is always @saidintherapy. Thank you so much.