Breaking Vases: Shattering Limitations and Discovering Life’s Purpose with Dima Ghawi

Jackie - 00:00:10:

You're listening to the Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox Podcast brought to you by the Diversity Movement. I'm your host, Jackie Ferguson, Author, Speaker, and Human Rights Advocate. On this show, I'm talking to trailblazers, game changers, and glass ceiling breakers who share their inspiring stories and insights on business, inclusion, and personal development. Thank you for downloading this episode. I am truly grateful for you. Enjoy the show. Thanks for listening to Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox Podcast. I'm so excited about this episode and my guest today, Dima Ghawi. Dima is an Author, Speaker, and Executive Coach here to share her amazing story of escaping confinements, crossing continents, and daring to discover her life purpose. Dima, thank you so much for being with me today.

Dima - 00:01:06:

Hi, Jackie. Thank you. I've been so much looking forward to this.

Jackie - 00:01:10:

Me too. Me too. Dima, let's talk about your book, Breaking Vases: Shattering Limitations & Daring to Thrive: A Middle Eastern Woman's Story. And I will tell you, I often get books from my guests. You know, my goal is to skim through them, find kind of some interesting tidbits. I could not put your book down. I started with the skim and I stopped and started reading it just word for word. It is so interesting, so compelling. So thank you for writing that. Let's get into your story first. What inspired you to write the... Actually, let's not start with that. Tell me your story and then it'll be clear what inspired you to read the book.

Dima - 00:01:56:

Yeah. My story started in the Middle East in my grandmother's kitchen. I used to spend a lot of time in her kitchen and she was always so playful and fun to be around, but one specific day she wasn't. She got a glass vase and she was serious and she said, do you see this perfect glass vase? A girl is just like it. If it gets cracked for any reason, you can never fix it, you can never glue it back, and that's the one we throw in the trash. So at that time I was just five years old. And I can only imagine like how that impacted me early on in my life. So what she was trying to teach me is a girl has to be perfect, that I have to follow, I have to obey, I can't make any mistakes. And if I do, I'm not going to be good enough and I'm going to be thrown in the trash. So growing up, that's what I was used to, seeing people around me, not having an identity, just doing whatever other people are expecting of them. And that's what I was programmed to do. And that's how the story started.

Jackie - 00:03:09:

And then tell us a little about evolving into your adolescence and early adulthood.

Dima - 00:03:17:

Yeah, so what happened was I got engaged when I was 19 through a family introduction, it's traditional arranged marriage. And I was so open to this because this is what I was programmed that this is my role in life. And we got married and we moved together to San Diego, California, because he was opening a jewelry business in the U.S. And of course I was very happy about this new marriage and the move to the U.S. I thought that I would be free from the vase and the expectations and all of these limiting beliefs that I was taught early on in my life. But apparently the vase got FedExed, shipped overnight from Jordan to San Diego and the expectations were unbelievable. So I was not even allowed to talk to my mom more than 15 to 20 minutes a week. I was not allowed to have friends. I was not allowed to leave our home without his permission. And the sad part is it didn't appear that it was wrong at that time. I was used to these things. But what I found was that I started getting very depressed and I didn't understand why. And also I didn't understand the meaning of depression because that's not accepted in my culture. You don't talk about these things. A depressed person, that means that individual has something wrong with them. So we don't talk about it. But I was feeling very low, very unhappy and I didn't know why. So I started asking people for guidance and nobody was really truly helping me. And one day I was so depressed, I couldn't get to my mom. I broke the rules and tried to call her in the middle of the week. I couldn't get her. I couldn't get to my best friend. I couldn't get to my uncle. These are the three that I trust the most. And I was on the floor crying, praying for guidance, praying for God to tell me what to do and the message that I got then at that moment is that I have a choice. Which is opposite of everything I was taught. I was taught that our destiny is written on our forehead. We have to follow. We cannot change our destiny because that's the life we're supposed to live. That our story is already created and we cannot challenge it. But when I was on that floor crying, I realized, wow, maybe I do have a choice. Maybe I can create a new life. Maybe I can escape from that.

Jackie - 00:05:59:

And Dima, how long was the marriage from the time that you were excited about getting married to the time you were on the floor having that moment?

Dima - 00:06:09:

Five years.

Jackie - 00:06:10:

Okay. Got it. Got it, please continue.

Dima - 00:06:14:

It took a while and it's interesting, again, some of the things that were happening at that time, to me, they were nothing wrong. And now I look back and I'm thinking, wow, how could I see that that is normal, right? Like what is normal? One simple one that now I laugh about, but at that time it was horrible. When we first got married, I was being playful and I wanted to hear some love language. I wanted him to tell me how much he loved me. So I asked him, I said, why did you choose me? Why did you pick me out of everybody? And he said, because you're like a dough, a dough. You know, the dough.

Jackie - 00:06:58:

Yeah, like bread dough.

Dima - 00:07:01:

Yeah, I was waiting for him to tell me about that because he fell in love with me at the first sight because of my beautiful eyes. But no, it's like dough because he wanted to shape me the way he wanted. He wanted me to see the world the way he wanted. No identity. And he wasn't lying because every time I was trying to grow and discover my identity, I was being pushed down and down and down and continued to make me believe that I should stay small. But I wasn't ready at that day when I was on the floor, totally crying, crying for guidance. I was not ready because I wasn't making money. I didn't have a degree. And I had to start thinking about what do I need to do to get myself out of that situation. I was warned by my family that they were not going to support me and that there would be horrible consequences. Specifically from my mom. She made sure I'm aware that this is not gonna be okay. My dad initially appeared like he was supportive, but everything shifted. And so I completed my education, thank goodness that was the only thing I was allowed to do and found a job, was making minimum wage, being a teller at Bank of America. And that experience gave me a little confidence. I was able later to get a better job. Even then I was making like very little in San Diego that was so expensive, but that gave me the opportunity to escape. I packed and I left.

Jackie - 00:08:46:

And I'll see you next time. Did you feel support from anywhere? So if you have your mom saying. This is a bad idea and your dad saying this is a bad idea. Were you getting support from anywhere? Or was this something you had to just do on your own?

Dima - 00:09:03:

I was getting support from my uncle and I talked about him in the book. He's absolutely amazing. He's my mom's brother and he lives in the U.S. So he's my ally. He's the person who helped me to see things differently. He was the one who kept talking about breaking the cycle of abuse, the generational cycle of abuse, because many times we're passing these horrible messages, stories, expectations from one generation to another. And the problem is we're not questioning them. We think that this is normal. And he kept talking about breaking that. So it was my uncle and my coworkers. So I used at that time to work for Merrill Lynch and my coworkers were like unbelievably supportive. Of course they were scared because when I escaped, I had to deal with death threats from my father. So in my small community, and I intentionally say Catholic community, because a lot of people automatically have assumptions about religion when I talk a Middle Eastern. So small Catholic community in Jordan, if a woman does anything that the father, the brother, the uncle disagree with, including leaving an abusive marriage, they would kill her and it still happened until today. Last time I checked, there were 20 women that were killed through honor killing. They call it honor killing because they believe they're bringing the honor back to the family. And they may go to prison maybe for a month or two, but they leave with a big party celebration because they're considered that they brought honor back, which makes no sense. There's no honor in this. There's no honor at all. And the 20 women that I mentioned that is recorded, they were killed recently. There are a lot that nobody knows about. They don't even report it to the police. So their number doesn't count. Their life doesn't count. So yeah, so my father started, he decided that I don't deserve to live and he decided that he was going to have me killed. That what saved me and now it's been 22 years. He lives in Jordan and I'm in the U.S. and he doesn't know how to speak English. He doesn't he so far, thank goodness, has not figured out how to navigate to get me. He does have some family in the U.S. that tried a few years ago in 2019 to help him. And I had to get the police involved. So thank goodness. Now, all my information is with the police. They know about these people. Even they went and they met and talked to them. Again, like when I think about what did I do wrong? I broke the vase. That's what I did. And my grandmother warned me about that. I am not perfect. I'm a woman who's. Who challenged the norm and challenged the cultural expectations. And as a result, I'm not good enough. I don't deserve to live in their perspective.

Jackie - 00:12:11:

Right. Wow, Dima, thanks for sharing that. Do you have a relationship with your mom at this point?

Dima - 00:12:18:

Yes, I do. So it gets much deeper. So my mom, initially, she did not want me to leave, to escape, because she knew the consequences. She knew as a woman, she had to live and act like a perfect vain. She was in a very abusive relationship, and she had to learn to live with it and to blame herself and always assume that she's the one who's causing the issue, even though she wasn't. So when all of this happened and my dad could not get me, he decided abusing her even more. I'm talking about like physical abuse. He would get drunk and he would beat her every night. My sister as well, he decided they don't deserve to live. And he decided that he was going to kill them as well. So at that time, I was 25. My mom was 49 and my sister was 17. And we are three women that we were programmed that were not good enough. We are worthless. We should just stay quiet. And we planned for them to get us to escape. So my mom and I specifically, we planned for her to escape to San Diego. That by itself, I just cannot imagine how it happened. It's just now when I look back, I cannot believe the courage that we had. I don't know if I can do it right now. It was so scary. And so she escaped. She left everything behind, everything, everything. Her home, her friends, her clothes, her jewelry, like Middle Eastern Women, we love our gold. We love our jewelry. It's a big part of our value and our worth. And she had to leave everything for her life and for my sister's life. We had a whole plan and thank goodness, we were able to get them out and they moved to San Diego to live with me. And when I think about it, then the three of us lived in a one bedroom apartment with no furniture. And my manager gave me, it was so kind of her. She gave me a love seat, a very old one that she didn't need. And a small little TV is like the smallest you will ever see. And I'm grateful for that. But that was all we had in our home. And we had to live like this for a while because that's all we could afford. It's just mainly a little apartment with a door.

Jackie - 00:14:55:

Well. And Dima, tell me what's happened since. And you've worked for some amazing companies. Tell me about how your life has been after that. Decision that scary decision and then the process of getting your mom and your sister here. That had to have been scary all the way through. Tell me a little bit about what you've done since.

Dima - 00:15:22:

Thank you. Yes, it is very, very scary. And especially since until today, we're still dealing with death threats. They went down a little few the last few years, but it's always there. And what we did is we focused on education. And this may sound weird to some people. They're like, you're dealing with death threats and you're focused on education? Absolutely, because we didn't wanna be stuck. We have a phrase in Arabic that I'll say it in Arabic and then I'll translate it. And it is, al ealam 'al nur wal jahl 'al zalam. And that means Knowledge is light. Knowledge brings so much light, awareness, power into our lives. And we knew in order for us to advance, we needed to become more aware, self-aware, but also with education that would help us to get better, better jobs. So I worked on my Master's. My sister started working on her bachelor's. My mom took some courses and it was tough. It took many, many years. And in my situation, after I finished my master's, I got a job with IBM. And until now, I don't know why they even gave me that job, which is shocking, right? As if they saw something in me that I didn't realize. When we grow in such an abusive culture, and I don't mean Middle Eastern, I mean like community culture. And we're automatically programmed that we're not leaders, we're not good enough, we have no worth. And then some company sees a value in me as if I wanted to go to them and say, like, are you sure? Or do you want to give me a job? That turned out to be the most amazing thing because I got this job, I got to work for them in different countries. They moved me to all around the U.S., I got to travel around the world and they focused on leadership, leadership development, self-discovery, a lot of the things that I needed. And surprisingly I had, but they were not, I did not know I had them, but through their programs, through their development, and I fell in love with leadership and I started wanting to empower everybody around me. But the sad part when I talk to people around the world. They would tell me things like their fear of making mistakes, their worry of being judged, and their aspiration for perfection. And as if they're living with a vase, as if they're living with my grandmother's vase, it's invisible, they may not know the story, but it's the same messages that keep them so small. They keep them thinking that they're not good enough, or it's not okay to challenge the norm, it's not okay to break free from all of these expectations. And as a result, they miss out on opportunities. So that's when I'll be like, oh, well, let me tell you what you should do. Yes, absolutely. And I loved it, as if it became my purpose in life. My grandmother's vase became my purpose of why I'm alive today.

Jackie - 00:18:39:

That's such an amazing story, Dima. Thank you so much for sharing it and for the courage that it takes to share it and to do all of the things that you did to be able to live the life that you have now. So amazing. One of the things, Dima, that I was thinking about as I was reading your book and thinking about our conversation is, a lot of us are afraid to break our vases for whatever reason. A lot of us are living under the idea of, well, this is what I should expect or I don't deserve more than this for whatever reason. What advice do you give to people who are afraid to break their vases but need to fulfill their potential and pursue happiness for themselves?

Dima - 00:19:26:

Yeah. The first thing I want to share with them is their feeling is very, very common. It's not just them. Every single person I interact with, they're afraid of breaking their vases, of challenging the norm, of being okay with them being different. And so I feel there's some kind of a power when we realize we're not alone. You're not alone. Nobody who feels these things are alone. And why do we have these fears? Because we're afraid of the consequences. We're afraid of being labeled a failure. We're afraid of losing something that is meaningful for us. We're afraid of death threats. And as a result, we keep doing the same thing and we're not changing it. We're passing it to the next generation. So my advice to them, is first, be very careful who you're surrounding yourself with. Because I realize when I have people who keep telling me, you can't, you can't, you're not good enough, I start believing that. And start surrounding yourself with people who believe in you. I know sometimes we cannot eliminate everybody in our lives, but to be very selective about the time and who we are investing the time with. The other thing is to start really spending time to understand what are we passionate about. When we get to a point when our passion is so much bigger than the fear, that's the goal. That's the moment when we realize, wow, my passion of what I wanna accomplish, or the goal that I'm creating for my life is so much bigger than the fear that comes with it. I believe that is just so powerful. In my situation, my goal of just being myself and being respected for who I am was so much bigger than the fear of the consequences and all of these things. So that is the other thing that I recommend is for us to start reflecting and asking, why am I interested in this? List down all your fears, invest in yourself. I realize a lot of people just start maybe taking courses about that thing that you're trying to accomplish. Maybe you wanna start your business, start taking courses about entrepreneurship, start building this fire inside of you. And in a way, what do you need to do to allow your beautiful dough to rise and identify what is pushing you down and try to eliminate these things? What's pushing us down is fear of the consequences, fear of what people are going to think about us, fear of being judged. But what can we do in order to build it up? What are the ingredients? Passion, Excitement about life, surrounding yourself with the good people that care about us, education, and that's when the rise would be so much powerful than the being pushed down.

Jackie - 00:22:24:

I love that, Dima. That's so right. And when you think about investing time, I totally agree. For me, I had to move away from what I call my at least friends. Well, at least you have a job or at least he's coming home at night. And those are not the people that help you fulfill your destiny and find real happiness because they encourage you to settle. And you need to be around people that are encouraging you to fulfill your potential, find your happiness. We should be in constant pursuit of that. So thank you for that amazing advice.

Dima - 00:23:02:

I want to add one more thing. 

Jackie - 00:23:03:

Yeah, please. 

Dima - 00:23:04:

I forgot to mention it earlier. When we think about every single person that we admire in our lives that accomplish something big, They went through the same thing as us. They dealt with fears, they dealt with resistance, they dealt with people that at least people, they dealt with people that told them they should not or they're not good enough or what's special about them. Just stay like everyone else. What is special about you? These people had to deal with individuals like this. And what did they do? They achieved the goal anyway. So small little goals, having what is your North Star? Keep walking towards it, even if it is small, tiny step every single day. And the most important thing is to expect failure. The problem many times is we are dreaming our big dreams and the first obstacle we face, we're like, oh, this is just not gonna work. No, expect you're gonna fail 10 times.

Jackie - 00:24:02:

Yeah. That's right.

Dima - 00:24:03:

You're going to doubt yourself 10 times and maybe 10 times a day even. But when we expect that things are not gonna go through the way we want it, it's going to be easier for us to keep our eye on the goal because we're not gonna be discouraged when the first obstacle comes our way.

Jackie - 00:24:22:

That's right. Such good advice. Dima, tell us more about your executive coaching practice. What kinds of professionals are you working with and how are you helping them?

Dima - 00:24:32:

Yeah, okay, so I have to give you history about this one. So when I was working for IBM, I got at one point, I lived in Japan. And when I came back, whether it is culture shock coming back to the U.S., or maybe it is some kind of a midlife crisis, I don't know what it was. I started to question what I was doing. And I started realizing that I was not happy Monday morning. I was miserable on Sunday afternoon. I didn't want to go to work on Monday. And that gave me a sign that I needed help. So I, on a Saturday afternoon, I Googled for an executive coach, and she responded immediately. And Monday morning, I met with her and I said, I need you to update my resume. I have to find another job. Because it's easy to assume that the job is the problem. It's easy to assume that the company is the problem. And she said, sure, we'll do that. But first, we need to understand your brand. So at that time, I was in my mid 30s, I have my master's degree, I was managing a global team. And this woman is telling me she wants to understand my brand. What does that mean? Like, what does it mean? Am I like Coca‑Cola? What am I? So, and she asked me specific questions that they just stuck with me. And the questions were, how are you different? What value are you adding to the team that nobody else is? And when people think about you, what words come to their mind? And I sat there. And I just stared at her and I did not know how to answer any of those. And it's shocking because, I have my education, which of course I value a lot. And nobody in my bachelor's or Master's talked anything about my brand and my value of how I'm being perceived and how I'm being different. They taught me to be a good employee, to show up at 8 or 8:30, to leave at whatever certain time, to make sure I am contributing, but nobody ever helped me understand how I am different. And throughout our work together, it took a year, and by the way, that night I went home and I cried. So if anybody listening to this and you feel like, I don't know the answers to these and you start crying, just know you're not alone. I did that too. So it was a whole year journey and it was the best investment ever because it helped me to realize that what I'm passionate about is helping people discover their potential to shatter the limitations, the vases that are stopping them to continue to advance in leadership or create their own thing like entrepreneurship journey. And that's what I do. I feel I became my coach. That's what I do right now. Work with people to help them understand how are they different? What is the value that they're bringing to their organization or to their community, to their life? And when they're thinking about themselves and what other people think about them, what's coming to their mind? What is their brand? How can they create this brand? How can they continue to grow it and protect it, which is so important? So I work with people from different organizations, like different industries. I work with a lot of women that feel that they are stuck. They feel that they don't feel comfortable speaking up in meetings. They're being intimidated by being the only woman in the room. I work with a lot of individuals from underrepresented groups that feel the same way. And I work with them on this journey of self-discovery, because when we know who we are, nobody can stop us from speaking up. Nobody can stop us from asking for what we want. We only when we don't know ourselves, when we don't know our potential, when we don't know that we have the power to break these horrible vases, that's when we stay quiet. And that's where a lot of people are. So that's what I do.

Jackie - 00:28:49:

I love that, Dima. You know, and you're right, so many of us have this expectation of fitting into this little box based on the narratives that have been shared or the way that our society is socialized for women, for underrepresented folks, and being able to step out of that and break out of that is so important. I love that. That's your focus for your business. You're described as helping people become courageous, purpose-driven leaders. We all aspire to that, but how do we begin to take that journey and how do we get there, Dima?

Dima - 00:29:33:

I believe we all have that. So when we say, how do we get there? We just need to realize we're born with it. We are all born being who we are and being courageous. We're just being programmed early on in our lives to fit in, to conform, to think that we're not good enough, that there's something wrong with us, that other people know more and we know less. So maybe to start realizing that we are born with our courage, we're born to be different and to be unique in all of these things. So the first thing is for us to believe that. Maybe it's difficult, but start reminding yourself every day. The other thing is to start questioning the norms, to start remembering what were the messages that we were taught early on that kept us small and will continue to keep us small where we just accept things the way they are, they are and we don't challenge them. And by the way, just a side note, I understand where this came from. So when we think about the stone age or the long, long, long time ago, we as humans, we needed to conform and lose our individuality for the sake of the group because when we're part of a group, we're going to stay safe, we're going to protect each other. That's going to reduce the threat. And it worked at that time, but we're in a whole different time right now. But somehow genetically, we're programmed to stay the way it was in the past. Because if you are being kicked out of the group or the tribe, you're going to die, you're not gonna survive. And that's why we're so afraid. So to realize that many times we're not courageous because maybe genetically we're still in the old way, but we're not going to die if we don't conform because we can create our own tribe, our own group that the group of misfits, people like us that are courageous, that want to see things differently. So that's the other thing is, which is similar to the prior question, it is who are you surrounding yourself with? Are they people that are fueling your courage and adding to this beautiful ingredient of you discovering yourself? Or are they ones that are pushing you down? And continue to feed your passion. What does it mean? Maybe it is with continuous education. Maybe it is with trying little pieces, little steps to get you to the bigger one, but to always remember that we are born being courageous. And in a way we need to reconnect with our inner child and to discover what are the things in the past that we had to let go of in order to fit in and to go and redo them. So I'll give you some simple example. Like as I was growing up, I love to dance, but I was not allowed to, not allowed at all because as a woman, I'm not supposed to. So I started taking now dance classes for the last few years. And it is like, think about the things that you were not allowed to do and do them and enjoy them and surround yourself with people that support that and rebuild your connection with your inner child who is courageous, who is a rebel, who is trying to do things differently, mainly give yourself permission.

Jackie - 00:33:04:

Love it, love it. Dima, speaking of courage, you have done not one, not two, but three TED Talks. Tell us a little bit more about those.

Dima - 00:33:15:

Yeah, that is terrifying. That takes all my courage. And I have to share when I started my business and when I did the TED Talks, TEDx Talks, I was horrified of public speaking. So I'm sharing this because many people here, they may feel like, wow, how did she do it? I am afraid, still afraid of public speaking. It doesn't go away. It gets better, but it doesn't go away. So the first one, I did it at LSU, TEDxLSU. And when I got accepted to give the talk, it was mainly to talk about global leadership. So how to work in a global environment and lead global teams. But when it got approved, something in my heart just kept telling me, no, this is not it. But it was approved and we were a month away. And it just like, this is not it. So I ended up writing another talk about body language and how to, funny, it's so much fun, understand body language in different cultures. And when I got it approved, again, my heart was like, no, this is not it. So I started writing another talk about the leadership transformation, how we need to transform as leaders as we're working with different cultures. And so it is about us. We need to adapt, we need to transform. And my friend told me, maybe you need to talk about my, I should talk about my transformation journey. And talk about the vase. And I'm like, are you sure? Like, I don't know if I can do that. Here I am with people I don't know talking about the biggest fear and the biggest even shame because there was a lot of shame I had to deal with. And she's like, yeah. So she started meeting with me. She lives in North Carolina where I used to live before moving to Louisiana. And we would meet every single night over Zoom and work on it, keep working on it, keep working on it, on the talk. And I ended up giving my talk, the first one about breaking off the vase. And it was, I believe, one of the hardest things that I did. So the most hard thing was escaping from that marriage. 

Jackie - 00:35:32:

Sure. 

Dima - 00:35:33:

That second hard thing was giving that TEDx Talks, but it changed my life. Because I had a lot of, even though I know I did the right thing when I escaped, but there's still old programming related to shame and regret and fear that I was dealing with. I was taught that I have to follow what the elders, what my father wants of me. I cannot challenge that. And I did. So there's a lot of negative things I was dealing with. But the result was powerful because people from all around the world started reaching out to me and not just women and telling me about how the story is inspiring them and how they related and how they were crying the entire time they were watching my talk on YouTube. And that gave me so much assurance and confirmation that maybe this is the path I should take. Maybe this is, maybe this, the pain and the tears and all these horrible things in the past, maybe that is a big part of my purpose. So that's the first one. And by the way, a year and a half later, I quit my job and I started my business. It was major. The second one I gave it, it was about a graduation game. It was a game my grandmother was playing with me when I was a little girl. This one is a happy talk. So we're not breaking bases, has a happy ending, but it is- 

Jackie - 00:37:04:

It's a heavy topic. For sure.

Dima - 00:37:05:

It was more about the aspiration of changing the generational expectation as well, because she was not allowed to go to school. And she was playing a game with me since I was five years old. She would take her magazine, roll it and tie it with a red ribbon and act like it's a diploma. And then she would do a whole graduation for me in her kitchen. And she would play that game with me over and over again, because she wanted to teach me, she wanted to break the expectations of what she was not allowed to do and change that for the future. Because, you know, breaking these generational expectations and generational abuse many times. It doesn't just happen with one generation. We need multiple generations to break it. And that's what she did. And then the third one is interesting, but the third one, they had issues with their recording. I have not been to Jordan since 1999. I was raised in Jordan, but I cannot go because that's where my dad lives. And a TEDx in Jordan reached out to me and asked me to give, to share my story. Of course I couldn't go, but they did it over Zoom. And I got to speak to my people and share with them the story and answer their questions and all of this. To me, the third one was just so powerful because there's something about going on the journey and it's Joseph Campbell, the hero's journey, going on a journey and facing the monster, the expectations, failing, thinking I'm not good enough, but then with the support of so many people and with discovering who I am in a way, fighting the monster, maybe sometimes winning, other times not, but continue to win and learning lessons. And then going back to my people. And hopefully that would be a big part of my journey in the future. I haven't done much of that. There's still a lot of fear in me of going back to the Middle East in general and sharing more and inspiring more. But I know this is gonna be a big part of the future.

Jackie - 00:39:23:

Dima, let me ask you this, because I know our listeners are thinking, as you're doing these public TED Talks, right, and public facing things, do you worry about exposing yourself? To risk.

Dima - 00:39:37:

Absolutely, every single day. So here are some things that I keep doing. So I have my assistant, he is constantly looking online to make sure that my address and my mom's address and my sister's address is not available online. And it's tricky because a lot of organizations, they just share it without even asking us for permission. So if you go to Google, you'll see that I live in Louisiana, but hopefully what we're doing is working. You cannot get the actual address. The second thing is the police, they have my information. So they even there's a police officer in the area that has to keep an eye on my car. I have him on speed dial. So if anything happens, I just, he knows about me. He knows about my story. He lives in the area. So that is the other thing. But I am absolutely horrified every time I speak because I'm afraid somebody is going to show up and do something. But my clients are aware of this and they, like I talk about this. It's nothing secret, especially in 2019 when the death threats increased. That was really tough. But again, there's a book called, Feel the Fear and Take Action Anyway. We have to feel the fear. There's so many levels of abuse. And I think about it and I'm done with it. I'm done dealing with them. So the first, I don't mean like done, like I accomplished that. Like I am just like tired, tired of dealing with them. So the first part is being abused, whether it is from my dad, from my husband and feeling I'm not good enough and them constantly shaping my life and shaping my mom's life and keeping me silent. Then the second level of abuse is when I escaped and I'm like, I am not going to deal with this mess anymore. I'm going to escape. And what is the level of abuse then is, then I'm not worthy of living. They have full control over my life. And if they choose to kill me, like they have been wanting to, not my ex-husband, my dad, that I don't deserve to live. So that's the other level of abuse. But even then, I stay silent. Like most people didn't know about what was happening in my life. Now, the third level of abuse is when I finally, finally discovered my voice, when I finally found the courage to speak up, what is the level then? That I'm a liar, that I am manipulating people, that's what they say, at least my dad and his family, that I am selfish, that I, all of these horrible things, and that's the other level of abuse, and I know I'm not. I know I'm not selfish. No, I'm doing this because I want to empower people. I want to give them voice, but it's interesting when I look at the journey, as if, like, if I group it, there's phases to the abuse, and that's why all of us, before we make assumptions about others, we need to slow down and ask ourselves, am I hearing the right thing? Where is the history? Why would somebody do things like that, and not just assume that whatever information we're hearing is the right one?

Jackie - 00:43:04:

Right. And Dima. People often say you have to forgive people because it's good for you, it's not about them, it's for you. Do you feel like you've forgiven your dad?

Dima - 00:43:21:

Wow. Huh, this is always going to be work in progress, but I'll tell you what I did. My heart started hurting. So here's what happened when I escaped and then I had to have my mom and sister escape. I did not have any time to heal, I was heartbroken, I was horrified, I was sad. Like, I don't know, like even more than sad. So the way I say it is I put all my emotions in a big black box and I locked it and I buried that. And I was trying to have it just because I needed to move on. I needed to work. I needed to survive. I needed to take care of both of them. So I buried all of these emotions. There's even a book that's called Buried Emotions Never Die. So even if we bury them and assume that they don't exist, once in a while this box is going to go open up and all of these memories are going to happen. And oh my goodness. So what happened to me was I escaped from all of this by becoming a workaholic. I work day, night. I just, to do anything in my power not to think about what happened. Because a lot of things that happened are unimaginable that a dad would do that to his children and to his spouse. And so I blocked it all. But then Again, buried emotions never die. One day I started having fever. And that was in, I'm trying to remember when, I think 2017, sometime then. I started having a fever. And then it kept extending. And after five days of high fever, it wouldn't go away. I went to see the doctor and she just advised me. She said, oh, don't worry. It will eventually go away. Just go home and rest. After 10 days of constant fever, I went back to another doctor and he freaked out. And he's like, we need to admit you to the hospital. So whatever I was having started attacking my liver. And this story sounds sad, but I love it because I was forced after that. Like I was in the hospital for a few days when they got me out, I couldn't move. And that was the best blessing ever. I believe that I was forced to just stay. I couldn't work. I couldn't do anything and just lay down on the couch because my bedroom was on the second floor and I had no energy to go to the second floor to face the reality, to think about it for a month and a half. And at that time, maybe Netflix was starting to come out. I don't know when they were invented or when they started, but I had no Netflix. So I watched all the movies I could in my home. 

Jackie - 00:46:26:

Sure. 

Dima - 00:46:27:

There was no more movies. So I was forced to just start reflecting about my past. And then I went to a natural healer. He knows nothing about me, this man. And he looked at me and he said, he said, I see that you have some forgiveness to do. This man knows nothing about me. I didn't even talk. So I went of course home and here we go again. I went home and I cried all night because yes, I had forgiveness to do, but you know. Even though he didn't know my story at that time when he said he said the statement he know it later, because i told them but at that moment what he meant wasn't forgiveness for others he meant forgiveness for myself. I needed to forgive myself because even though I was hurt, even though I was dealing with the death threats, but I was still inside of me somehow blaming myself. It makes no sense. But again, my programming that I should not challenge the norm, I should be an obedient daughter. And I was not when I escaped. So I had to deal with a lot of shame and a lot of things. So we started working on that. And as we're working on it, I realized that I needed to forgive my dad and forgive my husband. I believe today, it's a journey, but I believe today that I forgave them. I have no interest in seeing them ever, but I forgave them. And I did that because I want to have peace in my life. I don't want all of these old programmings and old memories to keep haunting me because it's easy to do that. I forgave them. And again, I just don't want them to be in my life. And the thing is many times we assume that when we forgive somebody, we have to be with them face to face. I have to meet with you and I say, I forgave you. No, I forgave them. My spirit forgave their spirit. And I believe it is part of my journey, what happened, as if our spirits had an agreement before we even came to this earth. They made my life miserable, but because of that, I'm here in front of you today. I get to do the things that I'm passionate about. And it's not theories. It is based on my heart. It is based on things I'm so, so determined to do. Because they made my life so miserable, they gave birth to being resilient. So they made me small, but I learned that every time I'm being made small, I'm going to grow again. And I'm not going to allow that to keep me small. So I'm grateful for them. I've been hurt, but I'm grateful for them. But the thing is just the fact I forgave them doesn't mean that I forgot. And I still have triggers all the time that I'm dealing with. Like even the other day, I bought a dress and the dress is light pink. And when I opened the box, I ordered it online. When I opened the box, It reminded me of a dress that I wore when I first got engaged. It took me back. I became this little girl, 19 year old. Wearing that same exact color pink and it's shocking to me. It's been a long time, but it took me there. And I still have triggers, I still have nightmares, I still have all of these horrible things, it's trauma. But again, I use it to help me grow, help my mom and sister and now my sister's son and other family members and to teach people by example. I can relate to them when somebody has trauma or challenges in their lives. They don't need to even talk to me. I can feel it. I know what pain feels like and I can relate to them.

Jackie - 00:50:33:

Wow, Dima, that's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your incredible story. What's the message that you wanna leave our listeners with today?

Dima - 00:50:43:

Of course, it's going to be keep breaking vases. But truly when I think about the deep, deep message that I want them to think about is maybe to take what my husband said about the dough and to start seeing themselves as a dough and to start realizing what helps them to grow and what keeps them small and to continue to invest and to invest in these things that help them grow, invest in relationships that are healthy, invest in their community, invest in themselves, invest in their awareness and self-reflection, these things that help us to grow and identify the things that make us small and find ways. To get yourself out of that.

Jackie - 00:51:31:

Absolutely. Dima, how can listeners learn more about you and your work, get your book, and get in touch with you?

Dima - 00:51:39:

It's very simple. My website is my name. So it's dimaghawi.com, D-I-M-A-G-H-A-W-I.com. And it has my email. It has my phone number if they are interested in reaching out. I have a lot of resources that I would love to share with them. So all they have to do is email me. And there's also Breaking Vases. So if anyone is interested in it, it is on Amazon. I did record it as audible as well. That was such a difficult project. But if they like to listen to Audible, it is my voice reading the book. It's on Kindle. It's like you can get it also as a copy of the book.

Jackie - 00:52:24:

Awesome. Thank you so much. Dima, this has been so inspiring. And I appreciate your so vulnerably sharing your story. Thank you for being here today.

Dima - 00:52:35:

My pleasure. Thank you for including me.

Jackie - 00:52:43:

Thanks for listening to this episode of Diversity: Beyond the Checkbox . If you enjoy the podcast, please take a moment to share it with a friend, leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you'll be reminded when new episodes are released. Become a part of our community on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. This show is proudly part of the Living Corporate Network and was edited and produced by Earfluence. I'm Jackie Ferguson. Take care of yourself and each other.