Under the Oaks

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Courage Isn't A Buzzword, It's A Daily Practice

Change doesn’t follow a straight line. It moves forward in overlapping circles that add up over time. So sometimes, when you’re creating change, you can feel as if you’re repeating the same thing over and over. Or, you get lost in what you’re doing at the moment. It helps to stop every once in a while to check your progress and see the bigger picture. To be able to look back and say “wow! I wouldn’t have been able to do that a year ago!” This is to the women and girls who are change-makers.

The Friend Zone

The pain of betrayal can lead to trauma. Then, you can inherit this trauma from one generation to the next as it is weaved into the tales you’re told. If you take a moment to reflect, you’ll notice the stories about trust and betrayal given to you by your parents, family, caregivers, elders, and community. Storytelling is one of the ways intergenerational trauma is passed down. To protect you from pain, the people that came before you say, “I’m hurting from betrayal, so you should watch out too.” The core message is: defend yourself, watch out, and be on guard. It’s about protection, not connection. If you’re struggling with trust in your relationships, including your friendships, this might be one of the factors influencing you. Read on to understand the anatomy of trust, so you can re-examine the stories you were told and rewrite them. Then, be able to cultivate long-lasting, trusting, and reciprocal friendships.

Level Up Your Happiness With Self Compassion

Compassion is both an outcome of and a tool for healing. Today, I watched a video of a woman creating a secret underground tunnel that’s liveable in the wilderness with three fundamental tools. It was a reminder of how creative and resilient you can be when you have the right tools. And what amazing things you can bring to life when you learn how to use them. Witnessing her was a seemingly simple but crucial reminder amidst the continued state of the world, in which the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, amongst other painful news. My first reaction to the overturning, and to quote the Michigan Legislative Black Caucus, “This is some bullshit.” This devastating decision, to me and for people like me, is yet another way the world can lack compassion. You can quickly get stuck in grief, defeat, and hopelessness when faced with this. Getting stuck prevents you from seeing the opportunity for rebuilding that comes after that. I could’ve gotten stuck in the limited resources the woman had in that video. I had to dig deep into my self-compassion to pull myself out of these reactions. I also connected with my community (the people who would get the depth of this). Compassionate connection with yourself and others allows you to find your sense of renewal and generate hope, dignity, and freedom. You become a better change-maker when you don’t deny your anger and sadness about what’s happened. You pay attention to it AND focus on personal renewal and healing as tools for rebuilding (at the same time). This compassion inspires you to be resilient to your circumstances and work towards the change you want. This week, consider compassion for yourself and others as a tool for connection, renewal, change, and oneness.

Hiba Khatkhat Video Thumbnail - July 17th

What Are You Doing To Make Life Easier?

In 2008, July was declared National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month in the United States to acknowledge and bring awareness to the unique challenges of underrepresented communities. There’s a stigma attached to needing help and asking for it in many diverse, deep-rooted, and underrepresented communities like mine. Often, white-knuckling through life and a hustling mindset is the norm. To need help can be seen and judged as weak, especially for mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness. This belief gets perpetuated and reinforced in a variety of ways. You may not even name your trauma or pain, so it goes unacknowledged for a long time. This week, in honor of this month, I invite you to re-evaluate this belief about needing and receiving help. You reclaim your power when you accept your need for this and then allow yourself to receive it.

Habits Of People Who Thrive In Relationships

You’ve probably heard this: “live life on life’s terms.” Sometimes people use this quote to justify living life passively. When you do this, you become overly accepting of life and don’t solve your problems. This isn’t the intention here. On the contrary, the quote is about moving through life with willingness rather than willfulness, honouring yourself while accepting there are things in the past you can’t change some things you can’t change right away. The public health crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to be, from a psychological standpoint, one big exercise in willingness vs. willfulness. This week, we’re building on a previous post on Openness and Willingness to Change. In it, we focused on how to find willingness with your body when you’re stuck through exercises like Half Smile and Willing Hands. We’re taking this practice a step further and applying it to the context of relationships and connections.

Hungry For Connection

The essence of healing is connection - first, to yourself. Then, to others. Your human nature directs you to seek bonding. You are, biologically and neurologically, wired for this. Unfortunately, when carrying unhealed trauma, you could seek harmful connections because you’re disconnected from yourself. “Trauma is that very separation from the body and emotions.” - Gabor Maté. Cultivating meaningful, healthy connections, on the other hand, helps you heal and thrive. For this to happen, being intentional in shifting your priorities in relationships is crucial, especially in your relationship with yourself. This week, join me to intentionally evaluate and shift your priorities so you may increase your connection to yourself, decrease loneliness, and build meaningful relationships.

Abandon Your Fear, Not Yourself

Commemoration days, like Juneteenth and National Indigenous Day, are about resilience, empowerment, and celebration. Their cornerstone is reclaiming your power through your cultural identity. Generational and ancestral trauma can make this difficult because one of its results on a personal individual level is to lean away from being yourself and connecting. This experience can be a shared one in underrepresented communities. Generational wounds can show up as fear of rejection, abandonment, and insecurity about oneself. And you may find yourself compensating in various ways such as being what you think other people need you to be. This week, I invite you to celebrate yourself by practicing showing up in your life from a place of freedom, joy, and self-confidence rather than fear. So you can be yourself anytime, anywhere, with anyone.

Shift What Self-Centered Means To You

Forgiveness is tricky - as a CONCEPT and a PRACTICE. This is particularly true for trauma survivors. Especially if your trauma occurred in childhood, and involved rejection, abandonment, punishment, and neglect. Culturally and socially, forgiveness is often linked to other beliefs like generosity, kindness, and love. Being forgiving is perceived as the desired quality. It implies “you’re a good person.” If you’re a trauma survivor, there’s a good chance you’re already struggling with core negative beliefs about yourself (you can read more about this here). And then, society tells you, you’re unkind if you don’t forgive. This perception adds to the skewed untrue negative beliefs you already have about yourself. So, you might lean into forgiveness so much that it overrides your healing. You can get so absorbed in it that you forget to factor yourself in.

The Wisdom Of Mistakes

One of the many things untreated trauma impacts is your ability to tolerate making mistakes. This reaction happens because past trauma can cloud you, so mistakes and failures FEEL scary, unsafe, and catastrophic (even when they FACTUALLY aren’t). In essence, you don’t feel ok with making an error because it feels threatening. You are more likely to experience strong, rigid reactions that keep you stuck when you do make one. Trauma short-circuits your process and affects your ability to learn from these errors.

Put Yourself On Your To-Do List

I remember being put on diets by my parents as young as 10 or 12 years old. There’s a vivid picture in my mind: I’m in my mid-teens, standing in the bathroom, secretly measuring how my skirt fits specifically around my waist. I still recall that skirt so clearly - it had small white flowers against a red backdrop. Long, flowy, and brushing softly against my ankle. Why couldn’t I just enjoy how the skirt felt? Why was I preoccupied with how my body fit in it? I could feel the shame creeping in my body at the idea of the skirt not fitting. Measuring exactly how much self-deprecation and guilt I would put myself through if it was too tight. AND, the relief that washed over me when it fit loosely!

Giving Yourself Room To Grow

Your trauma-based fears and worries are justified. Recent events such as the mass shooting in Buffalo, NY on May 14, 2022, remind us of this fact. And it wasn’t that long ago that many other racially motivated killings and crimes have occurred consistently, such as George Floyd’s and Breonna Taylor’s murders two years ago, among many others. Racism and racially motivated violence creates an added layer of threat, and the world feels that much more unsafe when you belong to the community or group that’s being targeted.

How to Declutter Your Mind

You’ve heard it before: “Don’t be judgemental. Judgements are bad”. You’d be surprised to know that this isn’t necessarily always true. In fact, you need judgments. It’s how your brain works. Judgements are essentially shortcuts. Your brain processes a lot of information all at once. Judgements come in handy sometimes. For example, your brain needs to make a decision in a split second when you’re trying to cross the street or when you’re driving. It needs to act quickly to determine what’s safe and what’s not, then act or execute. Your brain is judging very quickly if something is safe to do. This is when judgments are helpful and why we can’t eliminate them.

Openness and Willingness to Change

Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you can have trouble getting yourself to turn your mind, and to be open. You want to do it, but your mind isn’t turning. It’s stuck. Or you want to do it, but you find yourself feeling willful. Willfullness is when we dig our heels in or throw our hands up in the air. When this happens, you can try half-smiling and a willing open posture. This is willingness (with your body). Willingness is an opposite action to willfullness. You can cultivate willingness purposely and intentionally. This is why Buddha smiles!

Resilience on Mothers’ Day

This is to the ones who’ve lost their mothers: Emotionally, physically, or both. And, to the ones who stepped up, stepped in, and raised us to be the people we are. There are mothers who birth us. There are mothers who neglect us, abandon, and reject us. The ones we feel misunderstood by. And the ones we ache for. Then, there are mothers who raise us. Give birth to the people we are. They become our safe harbours, our love source, and our protectors. The ones that challenge us lovingly, and mentor us. Sometimes the deep loss and the aching mother wound(s) prevent us from seeing the riches of the connections with our other mother figures. With Mother’s Day in mind, our intention this week is to honour the womxn who raised you and uplifted you, and to heal the wounds of the young part(s) of you that ache. Try one (or more) of these, as you see fit.

Finding Your Resilience through Family Drama

When there’s multigenerational trauma, it can be difficult to navigate family relationships and dynamics. Sometimes, this can get even more challenging as you embark on your own healing journey.

Hiba Khatkhat sitting on a sharing looking to the right

How to Tend to the Roots of Your Resilience

Journaling has been a big part of my life since my teens. It started very intuitively. This was the 90’s! Pre-google, pre-poetry sites, pre-access to anything online. I had no idea people did this to heal. And so I followed this natural inclination to heal before I had access to therapy or even knew fully what therapy was. This helped me sustain myself from the inside out.

Courage Isn't A Buzzword, It's A Daily Practice

The Friend Zone

Level Up Your Happiness With Self Compassion

What Are You Doing To Make Life Easier?

Habits Of People Who Thrive In Relationships

Hungry For Connection

Abandon Your Fear, Not Yourself

Shift What Self-Centered Means To You

The Wisdom Of Mistakes

Put Yourself On Your To-Do List

Giving Yourself Room To Grow

How to Declutter Your Mind

Openness and Willingness to Change

Resilience on Mothers’ Day

Finding Your Resilience through Family Drama

When there’s multigenerational trauma, it can be difficult to navigate family relationships and dynamics. Sometimes, this can get even more challenging as you embark on your own healing journey.

Let Courage Lead The Way To Trying New Things

the Latest

Courage Isn't A Buzzword, It's A Daily Practice

The Friend Zone

Level Up Your Happiness With Self Compassion

What Are You Doing To Make Life Easier?

Habits Of People Who Thrive In Relationships

Hungry For Connection

Abandon Your Fear, Not Yourself

Shift What Self-Centered Means To You

The Wisdom Of Mistakes

Put Yourself On Your To-Do List

Giving Yourself Room To Grow

How to Declutter Your Mind

Openness and Willingness to Change

Resilience on Mothers’ Day

Finding Your Resilience through Family Drama

How to Tend to the Roots of Your Resilience

Courage Isn't A Buzzword, It's A Daily Practice

The Friend Zone

Level Up Your Happiness With Self Compassion

What Are You Doing To Make Life Easier?

Habits Of People Who Thrive In Relationships

Hungry For Connection

Abandon Your Fear, Not Yourself

Shift What Self-Centered Means To You

The Wisdom Of Mistakes

Put Yourself On Your To-Do List

Giving Yourself Room To Grow

How to Declutter Your Mind

Openness and Willingness to Change

Resilience on Mothers’ Day

Finding Your Resilience through Family Drama

How to Tend to the Roots of Your Resilience

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