Yousuf Raza – Love Actually
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AI: Transcript ©
We're just waiting for a few other people
to trickle in, and in the meantime, all
of you are requested to please mute yourselves
if you're having any technical difficulties with respect
to audio.
If you are having any difficulties with audio,
you will not be able to hear me
say this.
So if our course coordinator can please put
that in the chat.
A lot of you have not connected to
your audio.
I would also request that at least for
this webinar, you may keep your videos off.
In the subsequent course, of course, we would
prefer that your videos are on.
Right now, this is going to be short
and sweet.
I don't know if it's going to be
sweet, to be honest, but let's see.
Okay.
All right.
So I think, yes, if people can please
confirm in the chat box, if everything is
checking out with respect to audio, you can
hear me fine, you can see me fine.
Please keep yourself muted.
Course coordinator, if you can change the setting
such that whoever enters into the meeting is
automatically muted.
Okay.
So I am beginning.
We have a sufficient number of people in.
So we have one hour today.
This webinar is going to span for an
hour.
In the first 40 minutes or so, I'm
going to give you an introduction talking about
the importance of the subject.
Why is it that we're carrying this webinar
or this course actually out?
Why is understanding love important?
So hopefully by the end of the session
today, you will have understood something of the
significance, if there is still a question mark
in your head with respect to its significance
and importance to you, your personal lives and
society in general as well.
So that's one thing I'm going to do.
I'm going to follow that up with an
outline of the course itself.
What am I going to be talking about
within this entire course?
Of course, I'm not going to be alone.
I will have help from my team, from
guest speakers.
What is overall plan, which of course, like
human beings, it is subject to change if
and when warranted.
And that'll be that.
If you have any particular questions after that,
you will be invited to ask those questions.
The questions that arise in the middle of
my talk, you are requested to note those
down with you or send them to the
course coordinator.
Please do not post the questions in the
chat.
Send them to the course coordinator.
He will accumulate them and give them to
me when the Q&A time comes.
Again, this format is only for the webinar
today.
The way the course is going to proceed,
the format that the course is going to
follow is going to be something completely different.
So I hope that is all clear.
Let me then begin with why love?
Why love actually?
Why this course?
Why in the world are we doing this?
Why are we putting all of you together,
inviting you to join us on this little
journey to understand love?
The first of our reasons for doing so
is clinical.
At the end of the day, I'm sorry,
I should have started with introducing myself.
I'm a clinician.
I'm a psychiatrist.
Before anything else, I am a psychiatrist.
My professional experience training is all in the
field of psychiatry.
My academic training includes, of course, the vaster
field of psychology.
I'm currently pursuing my PhD in psychology at
the University of West Georgia and here in
the United States.
I have a diploma in, frankly, in logotherapy.
So that's to give you a very brief
background.
Other than that, of course, I am a
part of Telepsychiatry Pakistan, which is our initiative
to carry the understandings that we have of
psychiatry, of psychology, of logotherapy, of coaching to
as many people as we possibly can in
Pakistan, around Pakistan, with the help of the
team that we have of coaches, consultants, and
administrative team.
So that's the basic introduction.
I will tie in what we do with
the intent of the webinar as we move
on.
Now, why this particular course?
Why are we doing this?
Typically, you will not find psychiatrists addressing these
subjects, not publicly, at least.
You will not find clinicians having these seminars
with the general public talking about these problems.
Quite honestly, I find that as a neglect
of responsibility, a neglect of a duty that
we owe as psychiatrists to the community at
large.
If I were to round up my clinical
practice, all the people that I see, all
the people who present to me with their
problems, with their stories, and if I were
forced to reduce all of the problems to
one common origin, then I would say it
is the inability to form relationships.
It is an inability to be loved or
to love, actually.
Right?
So I would reduce it down to love
and relationships.
If I was forced to reduce it down,
pick out one problem that leads to all
of what you see in your clinical practice,
I would reduce it down to love.
That's as simple as I can possibly make
it.
Yes, I'm reducing things.
Yes, I'm neglecting a lot of other important
factors as well.
But I will not find that significance, that
importance in any other factor as much as
I would find in the understanding of love.
To give you an example, okay, so this
is a story.
It is a completely made-up story and
completely true at the same time.
I am putting together four or five of
my patients that I've seen together, cut pasted
a lot of their details so that they
are not identifiable, but I can tell you
this much, that this is recurring.
These five are the patterns that I will
see repeatedly, and most of my colleagues will
see repeatedly in our practice.
To illustrate again the importance of the subject
of love.
Now, this family, let's say, okay, so it's
one family, husband and wife.
Husband is hard worker.
Put them anywhere in the world.
Put them in the United States.
Put them in the, in Europe, Pakistan, India,
wherever you want to put them, standard couple.
Okay, hard-working man, good, makes good money,
provides for his family.
Whenever the wife talks about him, talks about
him with this appreciation that he has provided
well for me and my family.
The wife, good, educated lady, spent most of
her life as a homemaker and worked part
-time here and there, but for the most
part, her concern were her children.
Who are the children?
And they have this, they have four children,
let's say, okay.
Let's say the guys, they're called Ed and
Eddie, and the girls are called Ella and
Ellie.
Okay, I'm making up these random names, but
again, these are, these stories are as true
as they possibly can get.
These are repeated experiences in clinical practice.
The husband and the wife are not mentally
ill.
They do not have any diagnosis.
They're not depressed.
They're not anxious.
They don't have schizophrenia.
They don't have obsessive-compulsive disorder.
They don't have any of what you associate
pagalpan with.
These are pagal people who go to pagal
doctors and, you know, crazy people go to
crazy doctors.
No, they're completely normal, run-of-the-mill
family, husband and wife, doing their duties, fulfilling
their responsibilities.
But their relationship with each other, it's not
even conflicted.
It is not, they don't fight all the
time.
They're not abusing each other, cursing each other,
beating each other up in front of the
kids.
They're not doing any of that.
They're not doing any of that.
They're, they have a decent, reasonable relationship.
They talk to each other with respect to
the kids, with respect to the household chores.
They fulfill each other's responsibilities.
Pretty much the run-of-the-mill stuff.
Yes, as far as a lot of affection
is concerned, a lot of, you know, being,
going out of your way, that's not that
much.
The family has its usual get-togethers, dine
-outs, nothing, nothing abnormal.
From this family, the four children that we're
talking about, who have seen love in a
restricted way, being expressed between the parents and
from the parents to themselves.
And so they've expressed that love in, again,
a restricted way to each other as well.
No problems at all in their academics, for
the most part, as they're growing up.
Now let's see these children grow up one
by one.
Let's start with Ella, the first girl.
Now Ella, Ella can be a Fatima, she
can be a Maryam, she can be an
Aisha, she can be whoever, whatever name you
want to take.
I'm just calling her Ella, no one in
particular here identifies with them as such.
She grows old in this household, goes to
school, does well in school.
Right around her teenage, or late teenage, let's
say, in her high school, she confronts these
other girls who are these, who are very
passionate about religion, about religiosity.
Now Ella's automatically attracted towards them.
She sees that there is something there.
She starts attending their gatherings and she's like,
yes, I found it.
My life has a purpose.
My life has an aim.
And she becomes this, what we call ultra
-religious, very committed, very dedicated, practicing person.
Practicing in terms of her religiosity.
She has this passion for God, for the
work of God.
And she says she's going to live this
life forever.
And she's found her bliss.
And she was this, there was this something
missing in her life, this gap, this vacuum,
which has now been fulfilled.
Okay.
Ellie, that was Ella.
Okay.
Ellie, however, sees that her sister's ultra-conservative,
ultra-religious habits are not seen so fondly
by her parents.
They sort of isolate her from the other
normal people in society.
She doesn't want to do all of that
stuff.
She's younger.
So what she does is she does what
everyone else does.
The way the wind blows in her school,
she follows along.
She chit chats with her friends, goes out
with them, gossips, movies, entertainment, you know, the
whole shebang.
She likes guys and interacts with them and
has a couple of flings as she's growing
up.
And she's perfectly fine about it.
And she's enjoying it.
Like this is the way a normal person
should be growing up.
That's Ella.
These are the two sisters, Ella and Ellie.
Ellie was the, you know, the normal, quote,
unquote.
And Ella was the ultra-religious.
Let's get to the boys.
The boys are Ed and Eddie.
Okay.
Now, Ed and Eddie, as they're growing old,
they become teenagers as well.
Right around the middle of their teenage, Ed
falls head over heels in love with this
incredibly beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous girl from school.
And he's like, this is it.
I have found my perfect someone, my soulmate.
My life has found its ultimate meaning.
We were meant to be together.
We are one body, two souls, or two
bodies, one soul.
Two bodies, one soul.
That's what it said.
Okay.
So that's who we are.
And he's committed.
He's dedicated.
He loves her like anything.
And he just, that's his life.
He's going to raise a beautiful family together.
And what have you.
Eddie, that was Ed.
Eddie, on the other hand, does not find
the love of his life at 16 years
of age.
He finds friends who are into drugs.
Eddie's like, one of his friends is like,
just give it a try.
He gives it a try.
One thing leads to another before he knows
it, the whole shebang, hash, heroin, all of
that is coming into the mix.
All of that is coming into the mix.
So these are the four kids.
First, found religion.
I'm not saying specifically which religion, at least
I tried not to.
Second is going with the flow, following the
fashion, everything that everybody else does.
Third, boy finds the love of his life.
Fourth, again, boy finds drugs.
The really religious, the ultra religious girl grows
up, becomes a woman like everybody else in
the society.
She has to get married.
Now, as she gets into that relationship and
she's married, she marries.
Why?
Because her parents want her to get married.
Religiously, it is recommended that she gets married.
So socially, it's appropriate for her to get
married.
So she gets married.
Does she have any romantic feelings for her
husband?
Not really.
Is she interested in talking to her husband
prior to marriage?
Of course not.
She would consider that completely out of the
question.
She gets married and lo and behold, on
her marriage night, she finds herself to be
incredibly anxious.
She had that anxiety thinking about the intimacy,
the sexuality in marriage before as well, but
she always brushed it aside.
Has she ever had any sort of *
education from her parents?
What she should, should not do?
Not really.
The topic was too much of a taboo
for a standard family to ever converse about.
She considered herself to be not concerned with
these things.
And since she had found religion, whatever she
knew was religious do's and don'ts.
And that was pretty much it.
Now, she freezes up and cannot respond to
her now married, uh, the husband that she's
married to, his advances.
She doesn't know what to do.
He, on the other hand, seeing her response,
finds himself to be inadequate.
And the marriage is not consummated.
Not on the first night, not for the
first week.
Again, true story, not for four years.
True story that repeats itself.
And they're too embarrassed, both husband and wife,
to ever talk about it to anyone else.
And because of their difficulties, because of their
sexual difficulties with each other, they're emotionally distant
as well.
People ask, why don't you have kids?
They brush the subject aside.
They refer it to fate.
They shy away.
They don't want to have that conversation.
Eventually, our ultra-religious Ella decides that, you
know, she needs to do some sort of
work.
Because sitting at home, not really having, enjoying
a great space with her husband, she is
finding it really difficult.
And, you know, she's religious and she's practicing
all her tenets of her religiosity as she
ought to, but there is more that she
needs.
So she joins work.
She joins work.
She's working with, at this company with her
colleagues.
Time comes for some sort of an exam
that the company expects its employees to take.
She's studying for this exam with another colleague,
who happens to be a guy.
They're put together.
Now, she's emotionally distant from her husband.
Days go by, and they hardly exchange a
couple of lines with each other, pretty much,
and they've made their peace with it.
It's been so bad with respect to the
intimacy that they have stopped trying.
Every now and then, they have this conversation.
Maybe we should see a professional.
Maybe we should talk to someone, but it's
always brushed under the carpet.
So she, with this new work colleague with
whom she's preparing for an exam, starts sharing
some of her difficulties, you know, how she's
a little upset.
He empathizes.
He emotionally connects.
Lo and behold, this ultra-religious person who
was never able to consummate her marriage with
her husband ends up losing her virginity to
this gentleman at work who was emotionally available
to her for her.
So the very morality that she wanted to
hold on to for so long, or that
the society wanted her to hold on to
in her teenage, in her adulthood, because of
its, you know, the taboo of sexuality and
all, she ends up losing that, not when
she's single, but when she's actually married.
Okay?
That's Ella for us.
Now, of course, when particular Ella in question
appeared to me in therapy, there was, the
divorce was on the table.
It had almost happened.
And the new guy was also not an
option.
Anyway, I'm not going into the details of
that story anymore.
Again, not one story, repeated multiple times.
These are only the ones that reach me
and my colleagues.
There's so many that don't.
Let's turn to, who do we want to
turn to?
Let's turn to one of the guys now.
Let's talk about Ed.
Okay?
So that was Ella's story.
Now I'm going to talk about Ed's story.
So Ed, if you remember, fell in love
with this gorgeous, incredibly beautiful girl when he
was 16, 17.
Prior to this, you know, he was into
gaming.
He let me friends, studies, all of that
stuff, the usual.
But this time, this was, it was just
flipped his world.
He knew he found it.
He would wake up with butterflies in his
stomach and looking forward on his phone all
the time, waiting for her to respond.
He would say hi, and then his eyes
would be glued to the screen.
When is she going to say hello?
And she was the first person he would
text when he would wake up.
She was the last person he spoke to
before he went to sleep and she loved
him.
He loved her.
She loved him.
All was going great.
Everything was going perfectly until he sees her
talking to, again, two story.
Two stories mashed into one.
These are talking to this other guy.
He's like, no, no, no, this is nothing.
He's, you know, he even thinks about confronting
him.
He's like, no, maybe I shouldn't.
It's just in my head.
It's a little late for school than usual,
university, let's say.
Now, by this time, they're in university and
she's hanging out with that guy again.
And she's being all giggly.
And he's like, what the *?
She laughs at my jokes.
Why is she laughing at his?
And they're sitting a little too close than
she should with him, according to his understanding.
And what the *?
So he decides to confront her and she's
downstructured.
Like, how dare you accuse me?
How could you even think that I would
do something like that?
Who the * do you think you are?
And he's like, I'm sorry.
You know, it's just this and that.
And he tries to make up for it.
He's upset her.
He appeases her.
He does the whole shebang, the romance, the
gifts and flowers, apologizes.
The thing is forgotten for a week before
he finds out that she actually is cheating
on him.
Checks her phone, messages, pictures, inappropriate stuff, according
to him, that she owed only to him
and not to the other guy.
He's heartbroken.
He is downright suicidal.
He thinks life is not worth living anymore.
The one person that he trusted, that he
put his entire everything about his life was
planned around her.
She betrayed him.
He's like, what the *?
So again, all the different people whose stories
this is, some of them before coming to
me or any of my colleagues had attempted
one form of suicide or another.
All right.
One way or another of trying to kill
themselves.
Some had locked themselves up, not talking to
anyone, completely withdrawn.
University almost kicked them out.
They're not attending classes.
All of that stuff happened.
Okay.
Again, multiple stories matched into one.
His conclusion after that, all these women are
the same.
They are not to be trusted.
I'd rather not be in a relationship with
any of them.
If ever I do get married, it would
only be to fulfill my sexual cravings and
she would have to be subservient to me
and live under my shoe, so to speak.
He became distant from his sisters, started, at
one point they enjoyed a pretty decent, reasonable
relationship, but he became aversive towards them as
well.
They're also women.
All these women are the same.
And again, I've heard this story from the
perspective of the mothers and the sisters, because
this particular guy will not seek help either
unless he's forced to.
Okay.
So that was the guy.
Let's turn to, we spoke about Ella.
Let's talk about, who was the other girl?
Ellie?
Yeah.
So Ellie, the other sister, it was like,
doesn't want to be that ultra conservative religious
sister that the elder sister was.
So she's like, let me just fool around
a little bit.
She fools around.
She has some fun.
She goes out with this guy.
She's six months later, doesn't work out.
She's like, it's okay.
No problem.
People have breakups.
I'll move on.
She moves on.
She finds somebody else.
And it just so happens as she's moving
around, making friends, one of these guys, she
seriously falls for.
She also, like Ed, thinks he's the one.
He's this real charming person that she's always
wanted to be with.
She's like, he's perfect.
Eventually, as the relationship moves on, she's like,
hang on.
This guy's a misogynist.
This guy, all he wants, after you've gotten
over the charm and the romantic times, he's,
all he wants to do is treat me
like a slave.
There's no freedom that I'm going to get
in this relationship for my career, for my
dreams.
All he wants is for me to marry
him, work if he wants me to work,
not work if he doesn't want me to
work, bear him some children, cook his food,
and he does whatever the * he wants
to.
I am not in any way allowing such
a person to rule me.
They have fights.
They have arguments.
He confronts.
She confronts him on all of these misogynist
issues.
He calls her a feminist.
She's like, go to *.
And eventually, it doesn't work out.
The pattern repeats itself.
And she's like, you know what?
I'm okay alone.
I don't want anybody at all.
I'm just going to develop my career on
my own, get a dog or a cat,
and I'll be, I'll live the life I
want to.
Him and all men who are dogs can
go to *, but not the type of
dogs that I want to, you know, actual
real dogs.
I would prefer those to these men.
That's the third story.
The fourth kid, we left him in drugs.
Well, he's still in drugs.
That's the end of that story.
That is the end of that story.
And I'd say these are exceptions.
I'd say these are, you know, few and
far between.
But just in Pakistan, just in Pakistan, there
are 24 million people estimated to have clinically
severe conditions that require professional help.
These four people that I told you about
are spread out.
And those 24 million, and then there's many
others who will not have diagnosable conditions, not
diagnosable, not justifying a prescription, but still unwell,
still emotionally, socially experiencing incredible difficulties, making life
work.
The family was a pretty normal family.
They were a pretty standard family.
I started off with this.
They're not abusive.
They are not, they're providing for the basic
needs.
But as far as the love dimension is
concerned, there is a lot of confusion there.
There is a lot that is left begging.
So this is what brings us here.
And if we're talking about building a true
community, we cannot talk about building a true
community if we don't talk about building relationships,
if we don't talk about love.
Any of these four people, they go to
their workplaces, they go to their universities, they
go to their religious gatherings even.
Do we expect them to be performing at
their best, giving it their all to have
passion for what it is that they're engaged
in?
That's going to be incredibly difficult.
To be really working towards the development of
the society, the betterment of humanity.
Is that what we should expect from all
the experiences that they've experienced?
I haven't even gone to the point of
where a lot of them are developing pedophilic
tendencies.
A lot of them are caught up in
or have experienced child sexual abuse.
How does that twist their understanding of love
at a very young age?
We haven't even talked about that.
We haven't even talked about people who are,
and rest assured, that's not a minority.
Every one in, every fifth girl child will
have experienced something like that.
Those are global.
Eastern, Western, doesn't matter there.
Global statistics.
We're not even talking about those.
We're not even talking about those who are
physically abused by the people that they love
or thought they loved or thought who loved
them.
Those two are not a minority.
That's a considerable population of people.
People who develop psychiatric diagnosable conditions in their
adulthood, 50% of them have started experiencing
their problems as children.
A good three quarters of them, 75%
of them have had their first episodes or
first diagnosable psychiatric condition before the age of
24.
Before the age of 24, what in the
world are we doing?
As mental health professionals, do we have anything
intelligent, anything practical, anything understandable to offer the
general public so as to prevent these conditions
from developing?
I am yet to see any.
Very few and far between.
Very few and far between.
We want to get locked up in our
clinics and what have you.
Maybe it's Ed in the clinic.
I don't know.
Ed is not going to make a good
psychiatrist because for all the reasons that their
story is depicting to us.
This is the predicament.
This is where all of this is coming
from.
We can't produce 10,000 psychiatrists in the
next couple of years for Pakistan, but we
can do something with respect to, okay, let's
learn to talk about love.
Oh no, I already know everything.
That's exactly what each of those four stories
that I told you, those four siblings, each
of them thinks they know exactly what it
is, what love is.
Each of them.
Their parents think they know perfectly what the
subject is.
I, for one, I'm going to start with
this admission.
I don't know perfectly what love is.
Let's be very clear on that.
I'm not going to be as definitive as
all six of them are.
That's the first mistake that we make, which
is why we don't learn anything.
For our part, I hope the way I
want to conduct this course, the material that
I want to deliver to you, it develops
as we're talking.
It becomes better.
It becomes more informed.
The mistakes are corrected in the process.
So the second time we deliver this, the
third time we deliver this, it is different.
So essentially we need to be cognizant of
the incompleteness of what it is that we're
offering.
So very quickly, I'm going to move on
to the outline as to how the course
is going to proceed if you choose to
enroll for it.
But before that, a couple of disclaimers.
Can this course change your life?
Yes, it can.
Will this course change your life?
For a lot of you, it won't.
For a lot of you, it won't.
And all of us are going to be
responsible for that.
Me for not delivering it correctly, or me
for the material that I have to deliver
not being adequate.
Quite a possibility.
I'm not going to make any tall claims
as this is the best thing you'll ever
find in the world and da-da-da
-da-da-da.
Yes, it has worked for a lot of
people whose lives have changed, but it hasn't
worked for a lot of others.
For the most part, your concern needs to
be the defenses that you bring in, and
you will bring in a lot of defenses
because the content that we're going to be
talking about is not going to be comfortable.
It is going to be confrontational.
It should be confrontational if it is looking
to elicit some sort of change.
If it is only confirming what you already
know, what you're already doing.
If it's only reinforcing your comfort zone for
you, then I'm wasting your time and you're
wasting your time with me.
So don't expect for it to be all
pretty.
And when your defenses are challenged, when they
are put under the microscope and you feel
called out, although I'm not going to be
calling out anyone, you're going to hate me,
and you're going to hate the course.
Some of you will.
Some of you are going to hate yourselves.
A lot of that has happened in the
past.
I'm putting it out there.
A lot of people drop out for whatever
reason.
Right now, a lot of you are listening
to this with a lot of parallel windows
open on the side.
You will be attending the course in that
way.
Just give me whatever you want to give
me in the lecture, the reflections.
I'm not going to do the exercises.
I'm not going to do, and I don't
have time.
Fair enough.
Fair enough.
I'm not giving any ironclad guarantees.
There's a lot of variables here.
But yes, I am going to give the
best of whatever it is that I know,
from my knowledge, from my experience, whatever our
team can put together for you.
And when you have difficulty following whatever it
is that I'm saying in any way, then
we will have ways of making up for
it.
If there's something you don't understand and you
ask, we will try our best to explain.
But if you never ask, then there isn't
much that we can do.
There isn't much that we can do.
Okay.
Very quickly, the course outline.
If I may share my screen.
Hang on.
Okay.
So very quickly put together outline.
I hope all of you can see this.
Let me know if you can.
Let me know if you cannot.
Quick overview.
This is what, this is love, actually.
First of all, I'm going to start off.
Our first session is most likely going to
be an orientation session.
Essentially, what that is going to be is
you're going to introduce yourselves.
I'm going to give a long introduction to
myself, perhaps, and what we do here at
Telepsych.
And you're going to then put in some
of your questions or agendas that you want
us to cover.
If there is something that is already there,
it's fine.
If not, then we're going to add that
to the course material.
Again, it's going to go on for three
months, right?
Every Sunday, two hours.
There's a lot of what I'm putting on
here, but then there's what you tell me
you want that needs to be addressed.
If it isn't covered under any of the
headings, then we'll bring it out as a
new topic altogether.
Orientation is what we start off with.
Then we go on to what you see
on your screen over here.
What love is not.
All those misunderstandings, the myths associated with love,
I've given them various titles to facilitate understanding.
I'm going to try to keep the academic
jargon as minimal as possible.
Sometimes I might throw it out there just
so you know that I do know that
stuff when you start doubting me.
But for the most part, the effort attempt
is to keep it as intelligible as using
as much commonplace knowledge, vocabulary, experiences as make
it as relatable as possible.
So fish love, tiny love, mullah love.
What are those types of love?
We're going to talk about those, get an
understanding of those, and then keep coming back
to them as we're talking about what love
is.
We're going to have my teacher and mentor,
Dr. Basit Kaushal, give a visiting guest lecture
on the subject.
He's going to focus in particularly on Allama
Iqbal.
Again, but sticking with the theme, individual people,
practical, our day-to-day relationships, what can
we get from there?
What can we understand from there?
We're not going to try to make it
all that philosophical, you know, impractical, unrelatable, difficult
to understand for you.
Then we go on to what love is.
And there I'm going to be talking about
the different stages of love, which you see
in front of your screen.
That's typically a statement that is used in
Urdu to talk about not just marriages, typically
marriages, but that can also be extrapolated to
other relationships as well, that it's incredible for
a brief, what we call the honeymoon period,
but then it gets pretty bad, okay, or
pretty ordinary.
So we're going to address that.
We're going to talk about the various stages
of love, what their characteristics are, try to
identify do's and don'ts within those stages and
find your orientation there.
Then we're going to talk about, again, carrying
this conversation forward.
What does it really mean when you say,
I love you?
There's a fine print associated with it, what
you usually don't talk about, that you're taking
on the responsibility of the other person in
so many more ways than you thought.
Of these ways is a lot of brokenness
that each individual brings into a relationship necessarily.
Nobody enters into a relationship completely mature, absolutely
healthy, perfect in all respects.
They may be doing their academics and their
jobs and interacting pretty amicably with people, fair
enough.
Maybe they don't have a lot of personal
distress and depression and anxiety, all of that,
but that does not mean that there is
no brokenness inside.
For the most part, the brokenness manifests itself
in the most intimate relationships.
So there is a lot of jinns that
you are going to confront, a lot of
demons of the other person's personality that you
have to confront most intimately in a relationship.
If you're not aware of that, then they're
going to literally possess you and you're going
to have a tough time.
Whoever thinks they don't have any personal demons,
they don't have any darkness in their personality,
they are the first people who need this,
who need to be apprised of this.
Of course, there's most explicitly within this dynamic,
within these demons, these dynamics that we carry
from our childhood, our teenage, our experiences with
our parents into our mature and adult relationships.
Whether those relationships turn into marriages or not,
regardless, there's a very strong tendency of carrying
our parental dynamic into our relationship dynamic.
So in the fine print, there's a lot
of navigation around this that is necessary.
Then we're going to talk about setting up
a base camp, very useful analogy that Scott
Peck uses with respect to what a relationship
should look like.
In this, Sonia is to emphasize the importance
of communication.
We have heard this term a lot.
How can I serve from an empty cup?
He doesn't love me.
How can I love him?
Or she doesn't love me.
How does she expect me to love him?
A lot of you will have heard the
five love languages, heard of them or read
about them.
I'm going to talk about those as well,
their utility and also the difficulty that the
concept comes in with.
Then we're going to talk about the couple,
whether it's husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever it
is, as one entity, as one unit.
What does that mean?
It's person A, person B, yes, but AB,
has that identity been established?
If that identity is established, where's the individual
space in that?
Again, we're going to talk about that as
well in one of our sessions.
Communication difficulties, being misunderstood.
I never said that.
Yes, you did.
I know what you said better than you
know yourself.
All of that comes in when conversations turn
to one member or one individual in the
couple justifying themselves.
They start with, I am not an angel,
but, and then whatever happens after the but
is where the real story is coming in.
I'm not an angel part is completely ignored.
I am no saint, but, then after the
but is where the real conversation or the
real communication is taking place.
Jokes in relationships, where do they stand?
How do we place them?
What are the different ways we can look
at them?
Then what is the importance of faking it
till you make it within relationships?
We hear this a lot.
I am very genuine.
I cannot be a hypocrite.
I am only going to do what I
genuinely feel like doing in my heart.
We're going to turn around to, again, the
different aspects of it.
Simplistic statements really don't do it.
We're going to talk about meaning in a
relationship.
What does it mean to have meaning in
a relationship?
If you don't have meaning, if the relationship
does not have a meaning, individual can have
meaning.
Individual A has meaning.
Individual B has meaning, but the relationship doesn't
have meaning.
Then what vacuum does that leave and what
consequences can that have?
Then what is the role of ideology?
How it plays itself out in relationships?
All men are dogs.
All women are feminists.
Ideologies clashing from both sides.
You're a misogynist.
You're a sexist.
You are a feminist.
You are androgynous.
Is that what it is?
There's all of these being flung at each
other.
You're too irreligious for me.
You're too religious.
You're an extremist.
You're a terrorist.
What does that do to a relationship?
Moving right along, we're going to talk about
necessarily the importance of sexuality in a relationship.
This almost turned when we started talking about
what course do we want to launch first
of all the different courses that we can
and want to do.
We wanted to make the first one entirely
about sexuality.
For, again, reasons that I alluded to a
little bit in the very beginning in the
stories that I told, but inadequately.
There is so much more that can be
said as to how this is not addressed
the way it needs to be addressed, how
appropriately it needs to be addressed.
He never finds that attention and the results
are before us that every individual in society
experiences in one way or the other, but
then because we can't talk about it, we
just don't talk about it.
Or we go to that auntie on YouTube
who is telling you how you're going to
get physically ill because you masturbate and then
whatever follows as a result of that.
So we're going to address sexuality in considerable
detail with due regard, of course, to keeping
it as appropriate, nevertheless, not beating around the
bush, getting the message across that needs to
be put across.
So we will talk about that.
Bonus materials.
I'm not sure about the first one.
I might end up doing it.
I may not talking about an analysis of
parts and none of that fits into whatever
we talk about.
We will talk about religion and spirituality relationships.
Again, you don't have to attend that if
you don't want to.
But there are people who will, who do
hold on to, who take their religion very
seriously, their spirituality very seriously.
And necessarily, it does have an impact in
your relationship.
Surprisingly, when you don't take your religion and
spirituality seriously, that too has an impact that
in itself is a factor in relationships.
We will have those conversations as well.
Then specifically for married people.
Up until now, whatever it is that I've
spoken of applies across the board, married or
unmarried.
We can, of course, there will be specific
differences, but more or less, these are generalizables
that we're going to talk about.
Okay, but then there are specific issues that
married people have that we will address as
well.
For example, I'm sorry, that was a, I
don't know if it was a Freudian slip
or what, but in any case, that needs
to be talked about seriously as much as
possible.
And then we're going to talk about children
and parenting briefly.
We may not be able to talk about
it in as much detail as I'd like
for us to, but at least give you
something as the principles that we've discussed, how
they extend to parenting.
So that's what we end with.
I think I have, as always, gone over
time.
If you have questions, please, please, please feel
free to put them forward and course coordinators,
tele-psych team, if you guys think if
I have left anything out, please do, please
do let me know and we can let
everybody know.
Okay, course coordinator, whatever message you've sent me,
I cannot see it.
It is a blank gray screen.
Find another way of sending it to me.
Please put your questions forward to us and
we can see however many questions we can
address in the time that we have left.
Okay, so you're very welcome.
The way you can attend the sessions is
that you're going to be, a link is
going to be shared with you, where you
can register for the course.
Yeah, I like it too.
That's why I put it there.
Danke.
Hang on, what do you say to Danke?
Willkommen, I guess.
Okay, willkommen.
This course is not only about marriages.
I tried clarifying that, that this is not
only about marriages.
For the most part, it is going to
be general.
Applies to relationships across the board, premarital and
marital, hopefully not extramarital.
But yeah, there will be a specific section
on or for married people, which is going
to do with in-laws and parenting and
all of that.
We will have that separately.
For the most part, the rest of the
lectures, and they're going to be lectures, yes,
but discussions as well.
They're going to be generalizable for people across
the board, married or not.
Okay, so that's that.
And let me look at the questions that
you've all sent.
Please do send your questions to course coordinator.
If you send it to me here, I
might miss out.
Okay, for the first question, should we expect
to find love after this course?
We might get aware about love, but the
problem is how to find someone who is
equally or at least aware of love in
our direction is difficult.
This causes disappointment when it comes to love.
I hear you.
It is quite a challenge, quite a problem.
Matrimonial services aren't exactly the perfect route that
we'd want for them to be.
The traditional parents getting their children engaged when
they were kids obviously doesn't happen anymore, marrying
into the family.
And then there's other ways that become complicated.
So we do not provide good matches, at
least not deliberately.
If you end up finding somewhere here, not
my business.
All right, I am taking no responsibility for
that.
That is not what we wanted to do.
But if it ends up happening, hey, what
can we say?
All right.
But if you want us to start a
matrimonial service as well, then I will just
respond to that by saying, there's nothing more
that we can possibly take.
Myself and every one of my team, we're
pretty much plugged out here.
Okay, so that's the best I can say
for that.
But I do understand that is a valid
concern.
Finding love and where to find love, important
enough that it's not a part of my
outline.
But if you guys want to talk about
it, we can have a completely dedicated discussion
on that.
Again, like I said, this outline is not
final in the sense that whatever you want
that needs to be addressed that you don't
find in there, you let us know.
And if I think it's going to fit
into a one heading or the other, I'll
let you know about that.
If not, it's going to become a separate
topic in and of itself.
Okay.
Right.
Second question, please feel free to leave those
of you who are on a schedule.
My apologies for going overboard.
But again, I'm probably going to do a
start on time, couple of minutes late, usually,
because we have to wait for people to
come in.
I'm going to be here on time, inshallah.
But yeah, I might overextend sometimes.
But if you guys don't want me to
do that, we can talk about it.
Now orientation session will lay all of these
things out, we'll come to a consensus, your
input will matter.
And we will try to do whatever we
can to accommodate.
Next question, what should be our first priority?
Self love, or loving the spouse?
Okay.
Um, wrong question.
And as to why that's our wrong question,
that question in itself, setting us up for
a lot of problems, just the way it's
framed, just the way it's framed, one is
excluding the possibility of the other.
And yes, there are instances in which that
has to be the case.
But if that is considered to be the
overall situation, it becomes problematic.
But again, not a question that I can
answer without having delineated the aspects that so
many of the aspects that I laid out.
So my apologies for an inadequate answer.
But I can't answer this in one word,
that this is priority or that is priority,
it is going to be construed in very
damaging ways.
Okay.
How can one get out of these abundance
blocks if even if you have tried again
and again, your perception is not changed?
I would say that if you have tried
again and again, but the way you've tried
hasn't changed.
Then that's a problem.
If you're repeating the same effort in the
same way, expecting different results, not the best
way to go about it.
That is precisely the point where you bring
somebody else into the conversation and say, this
is a problem.
This is what I've done with it.
It is not working.
How do I get or achieve my goal?
Can I achieve my goal?
You bring that conversation in so that other
ways, if there is a conceptual problem, then
that conceptual problem can be addressed.
If there are ways that you did not
think of, and those possibilities are spoken of,
or if whatever it is that you're pursuing
is a wild goose chase to begin with,
that needs to be identified as well.
Okay.
All right.
In terms of romantic love, is it a
healthy philosophy to simply bear the burden of
your partner, especially if they're depressed and anxious
clinically, and be patient with their meanness and
unreasonableness and anger with the thought that Allah
will reward the patience eventually, or will that
invariably cause resentment and crumble?
Very, very loaded question.
Very, very loaded question.
See, within romantic love, whatever it is that
we mean by that, bearing some burden of
the other person is necessary.
And yes, there is a consideration that you
have to give to your capacity to bear
that burden.
There is a consideration that you have to
give, okay, what can I do to increase
my capacity to bear that burden?
But to imagine that I can pop out
of this particular relationship, because the burden is
too much to bear, and to expect that
whatever subsequent relationship I'm going to end up
in is going to be that perfect relationship.
And that's usually the fallacy in a lot
of second, third relationships, or second, third marriages
for that matter.
You couldn't work it out in the first
one, or the second one.
You completely put the burden on the other
person, whether it's their depression, or their anxiety,
or any other phenomena, whatever, their selfishness, their
this, their that, something monstrous about them, that
they're entirely demonized.
And if it wasn't them, if it were
somebody else, I would have my happily ever
after.
And you move into that second relationship, or
that second marriage, thinking that the first wife
or the first girlfriend or boyfriend, everything was
wrong with them.
And lo and behold, what usually happens in
the second relationship or second marriage, they end
up being the pattern repeats itself.
The pattern repeats itself, the person changed.
But the pattern did not.
That means you brought that pattern with you.
And the demonization of the other was so
strong and powerful, that you weren't able to
see where you were lacking yourself or what
you could have done differently.
Again, there will be situations in which perhaps
you don't have that capacity, you can't do
different.
Fair enough.
But is your situation that situation?
I'd be very careful before answering that, that
question for every, it's going to be different
for every person, it is going to be
different in every relationship.
Okay, again, when you're exiting the relationship, especially
a long term relationship, when a person has
invested quite a bit in you and you
and them, you want to make sure that
you've covered your bases, because that person is
going to be gone, or you will not
see them again.
But the regret lives with me.
That regret, which in the heat of things
in the anger of things you never thought
you would experience.
But once the heat dies down, and you're
broken up, or you're divorced, the regret comes
swarming back.
And then your subsequent relationships have to pay
for it.
Or you live with it on your own,
not knowing what to do with it.
Okay, so when exiting from a relationship, now
that you ask this question deserves a section
on its own, you want to be very
clear.
I've done as much as you possibly can
have done what I could.
And you're never going to leave completely regret
free, you shouldn't leave completely regret free from
any relationship.
But as much as possible, if you are
leaving 100% regret free from a relationship,
I'm very, very suspicious of that there is
something seriously wrong, a lot of strong, rigid
defenses that are kicking in that are demonizing
that other person complete.
Notwithstanding that some person, some people do deserve
to be demonized entirely, that the majority of
the fault at least does lie with them.
But again, be very, very cautious before you
draw that judgment or that conclusion.
Sometimes parting ways is the best course, it's
the most loving course that you can take.
Course of action, I mean, right loving the
most loving choice is to part ways.
At times, the situation does warrant that.
How does that make sense?
Again, more details when the course starts.
Premium version only.
This is limited version.
Okay, so all of those questions that I
did not get.
Okay, now I have gotten those questions.
Right.
What if after taking this course, we end
up having too high expectations?
We already get backlash at home for being
too high standards.
So as far as a very, as far
as I'm concerned, our entire team, we're very
making a very deliberate and concerted effort into
making sure that your expectations become real.
That they are from that place of fantasy,
they're brought to earth.
And also from that place of pessimism, an
absolute, you know, lovelessness of nothing can, nothing
can ever happen for me, or it's an
impossibility, we come back to earth.
So we would try, of course, we are,
we are going to fail in one way
or the other for one person or another,
but our effort is going to be to
make it as balanced as we possibly can.
But thank you for putting that out there.
We are cognizant of this.
And we will try our best that we
don't raise your expectations too high, neither too
low.
But how do you tread that thin line?
Let's see.
Okay.
Okay.
So at times you do, by LDR, I'm,
this question, the LDR question is incomplete.
The sentence, the question finishes mid-sentence.
If you can please resend that.
No, I know LDR, they mean long distance
relationship, that much I figured out.
But the question finishes mid-sentence.
At times you need counseling and no, no
what?
Okay, how to develop trust again in a
relationship if it has gotten lost?
Very good.
Again, I'm, I feel embarrassed for saying that
most of these questions I plan on answering
in detail within the course itself.
I can't give you pellets right now.
But I will say this much that trust
is going to be threatened in every relation,
every real relationship.
Now we have to look at, was the
expectation too high?
Has, was the trust actually betrayed?
What was done?
And if you want, if you really, really
push me into one size fit all kind
of an answer, then my standard response is,
if the person looking to regain your trust
is showing you what they're going to do
differently now than from when they failed, something
to show their commitment and seriousness.
Acknowledgement is there, of course, that's prerequisite number
one.
Following the acknowledgement, practically, how do they, how
do they plan on being more trustworthy?
If they're like, yes, I acknowledge it, I
was at fault, I'm sorry.
And if they have no clue or no
willingness to find out practically what they're going
to do differently, and they're like, defensively telling
you either trust me or you don't, that's
not a good sign.
That is not a good sign.
Okay, they should be willing to share what
is it that they're going to do differently,
or at least be willing to work that
differently out with you or with a professional.
Okay.
Will there be a discussion about how to
make love happen when there isn't, or how
love can be reignited when it is extinguished?
Yes, that's my favorite topic.
I will talk about that.
I wonder if you discussed the line between
real love and toxic love, where you're just
compromising your dreams and goals, like, fair enough,
real love, toxic love.
That will come up again and again.
So I can tell you this much.
Why are the people that need this course
the most, the most resistant to attend?
And what can we do to change that?
The best I can say is we cannot
force people to attend or do anything, can
we?
We can have conversations with them.
We can try to understand from where they're
coming.
And once they feel understood, that we have
empathized with their position, with their situation, with
their whatever reasons that they're given for not
attending, maybe some of the reasons are genuine.
Maybe they don't like me, maybe they didn't
have a experience with me.
Or anyone else who delivers services like these
or courses such as these, perhaps, I don't
know.
We would want to hear them out first,
make sure that they know that we've understood
where they're coming from.
And then after they feel understood, they know
that we've understood them, then we look to
respond.
If we try to preach without all of
that having happened, we're mostly most likely going
to have it flung in our faces.
Number two, we're going to be the inspiration.
If there are significant changes that people see
in us after benefiting from this material and
it is palpable, that is the difference that
I typically see in people who take what
we have to offer seriously and make the
requisite changes in their lives after having gone
through the whole therapeutic process.
Before you know it, you have the entire
family in there.
That's my cousin, and they want to come
to you as well.
And they saw me and they're like, Oh
my God, you're a different person altogether.
Who is this?
What is this?
And they're coming.
But if they don't see that, if they
see you are where you were, only more
frustrated and having more content to criticize others,
then that's going to be quite the disappointment.
So understanding them and being that inspiration.
If religion constricts us from enjoying halal relationships,
I'm stuck in Ella's story.
Okay.
What we want emotional support from our partner
is more than physical support.
I'm also pretty pretty hung up.
I was when I confronted Ella the first
time and then the second.
All the different versions of Ella's stories, they're
pretty disturbing, aren't they?
So when we talk about religion, spirituality and
relationship, that particular section that I delineated, we
can have something of a reasonable conversation on
this at that time.
Maybe not definitive answers, but at least a
conversation.
Carry the discussion forward in some direction.
Okay.
Can I get the course outline slides?
Yeah, you sign up and you'll get a
whole lot more than just the course outline.
You'll get the course material, the course contents,
everything.
Don't you worry.
Okay.
Other question.
If religion, we already got this, didn't we?
Oh, you recite the question.
Sorry.
Is it necessary to be possessive about someone
if you love that person possession and are
two different things?
I really look forward to answering all of
these questions in detail, and I'm really sorry
for not giving adequate answers right now because
I look at your question and I'm thinking,
first, we understand this, then we understand this,
and then we understand third, and then it
becomes, and then I get lost in that.
And a quick short answer, I'm usually not
good with that.
So I know what this feels like, restricted
version, redirecting you towards the premium version, but
it is what it is.
I can't really do anything else about it.
The rest of the questions that you have,
let's try to defer them to the actual
course itself.
Again, if they are covered in a heading
that I've outlined, they will get addressed.
If not, we'll make a separate heading, separate
session.
Those who sign up will get their answers
and in a lot of detail to add
that.
So I look forward to most of you
being a part of it, what the course
entails, what it offers, what it gives.
The details have already been shared.
You have further questions, please do feel free
to reach out at the contact information provided.
There's a WhatsApp number, there's an email address,
course coordinator, if you can put that in
here right now as well.
Your questions can be answered over there.
Thank you very much for attending today for
this webinar.
My apologies again for not being able to
give more satisfactory answers that you were looking
for and hiding those behind a paywall, unfortunately.
If I could, it would be much different
than this, but it is what it is.
Thank you very much.
And Assalamu Alaikum.