Uprooted by Child Sex Abuse

In this podcast episode actress Nadia Jamil shares her courageous healing  journey from victim to survivor and now thriver after being uprooted by child sex abuse. She shares coping strategies including mBIT, Neuro Linguistic Programming, and Hypnosis. 

How to connect with Nadia Jamil
Instagram and on Twitter as NJ Lahori 
LinkedIn as Nadia Jamil.

Support Resources
If you or someone you know needs support, the following resources offer confidential help:
🌍 Global
* Child Helpline InternationalHelps connect you to local helplines in many countries
* You can also search: “sexual assault support hotline + your country”

🇺🇸 United States
* RAINN📞 Call: 800-656-HOPE (4673) 💬 Online chat + text: Text HOPE to 64673
* 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline📞 Call or text: 988 (24/7 support)

🇬🇧 United Kingdom
* Samaritans📞 Call: 116 123 (free, 24/7)
* NSPCC📞 Helpline: 0808 800 5000 (for concerns about children)
* NAPAC📞 Support line: 0808 801 0331

🇵🇰 Pakistan
* Madadgaar National Helpline📞 Call: 1098 (child protection and crisis support – varies by region)
* RozanOffers counseling and support services (contact via local listings)
* Government-listed support / crisis contacts:📞 Emergency: 15 📞 Counseling & legal aid lines: 0800 13518

🧭 Additional Notes
* If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number right away.
* Many countries now offer text/chat options if calling feels difficult.
* You deserve support in whatever way feels safest for you.


I’m Kiran Prasad, teacher, speaker, and author of “A Mindful Move: Feel at home again’ based on my 29 house moves. While I’m someone who’s always yearned for stability, the only constant in my life has been change! I’ve finally come to an acceptance and found purpose and meaning in it all by helping others going through the same. 

On each episode, we’ll focus on a topic of unwanted change with guests sharing stories of resilience and insights into how they navigated their journeys. Together, we’ll discover a community of inspiring individuals and create a system of support for one another.

In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, may you find peace and rootedness. 

Transcript

Kiran Prasad (00:00)

Today's story of healing and resilience contains sensitive material on the topic of child sex abuse with mention of physical abuse, suicide ideation, and cancer. So it may not be suitable for everyone.

Kiran Prasad (00:13)

Information shared is based on personal experiences and not meant to replace medical, psychological or other professional help.

Nadia Jamil (00:22)

My...

 defense mechanism was to freeze. And as I grew older, my defense mechanism became freeze, submit, fawn.

And I think what happened to me was I normalized abuse.

there is no trauma, there is nothing that happened in my past, there is no individual that existed, exists or will exist that can ever, ever, take power over how I feel again.

You don't have to die to find peace. You will find peace inside you and it's going to be beautiful.

Kiran Prasad (00:52)

Hi everyone, I'm Kiran Prasad. Welcome to season two of the Uprooted by Unwanted Change podcast about managing life transitions.

On each episode we focus on a topic of unwanted change with a story of hope and resilience for navigating through it. Together, we'll discover a community of inspiring individuals and create a system of support for one another.

Kiran Prasad (01:20)

I have a very inspiring individual with me today. Nadia Jamil.

Kiran Prasad (01:26)

And the topic of child sex abuse. It isn't addressed enough. I wish we could do more for it,

Kiran Prasad (01:33)

particularly I find in our South Asian community from which Nadia and I are both from. Definitely a lot of work needs to go into addressing it there.

Kiran Prasad (01:45)

⁓ I came across

Nadia,

it was my sister that I've got to thank. She kept urging me, she'd found you somehow.

She said you have an incredibly empowering story. I've been researching  your interviews. Your TEDx talk was awesome! And I knew that you are the right person for this. I've been waiting quite a while coz

Kiran Prasad (02:10)

Nadia

Kiran Prasad (02:10)

is a very busy woman recording on TV episodes.

And right now

she is recording past 11 PM local time in Lahore, Pakistan.

And we have a bit of a London connection that I'm sure she'll share later with you. So

Nadia Jamil (02:25)

Hmm.

Kiran Prasad (02:27)

Nadia,

you have the most incredible accomplishments. Really, I'm blown away. You got your bachelor's in drama and creative writing.

You've got a master's in English. We've got similar background with the English. And an international fellowship at the Globe Theatre in London as well. You're an award-winning actress, a host, TEDx speaker at Lahore Women, child protection advocate,

and you're certified in NLP, hypnotherapy, TLT, mBIT, so many things.

Nadia Jamil (03:03)

Hello.

Thank you for the wonderful introduction. Hello everybody.

Kiran Prasad (03:05)

⁓ Oh you're welcome.

Well,

Kiran Prasad (03:10)

Nadia what I want to do today is I want to

Kiran Prasad (03:14)

share your journey from victim to survivor and now thriver as you much prefer to call yourself. So tell us a bit about your formative early years

Nadia Jamil (03:16)

Thanks.

Kiran Prasad (03:26)

when life cast little Nadia in the role of victim.

Nadia Jamil (03:31)

Yeah, I was born

in London

in a very privileged, very loving home to parents who were madly in love with one another. And it was a very wholesome and loving marriage.

I think They were very young when they had us, my brother and me. My older brother passed away. And then it was my brother and me. And

Kiran Prasad (03:51)

I'm so sorry.

Nadia Jamil (03:57)

they were, I think my mom must have been what 21, 22 when she got married. She must have been what 24, 25 when she had me. So they were babies. And my dad was just a year older and they liked to party and they liked to enjoy their youth. My mom was also studying. She was in uni, she was at SOAS. And I think because and both my parents had had such a loving and

Kiran Prasad (04:02)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (04:24)

safe childhood themselves. You know, my mom was the daughter of a brigadier in the Indian Army and then in the Pakistan Army after the partition. My mother was born in India and she moved in the migration of 47 with her family. I think my dad was the youngest brother of a

business family. But I think  because they were so sheltered and because they trusted so easily, I think they trusted the local staff there a lot. My grandfather was ambassador at that London,

Nadia Jamil (05:09)

and his staff were like family to us. There was a chef and his wife who raised us and there was also a driver. And the driver was this,

Kiran Prasad (05:09)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (05:23)

now when I look back, he seems really tall in my memories. When I went back to the room where it all happened.

I was four years old when it started and I'd always imagined the room to be this huge room and this... When I went back to the house, it was a really small room. And I asked them, I said did you make any changes? I mean it's really small, the room. And they were like, nope, this is the way it's always been. I was like, wow. So I think from that perspective of a little girl, he just seemed huge.

I think initially when I looked back,  I only had glimpses and flashes of what happened to me. And I knew there were private parts involved because I had flashes of them. I mean, it went on for about four or five years. And

I became someone, My...

 defense mechanism was to freeze. It was just to freeze. And as I grew older, my defense mechanism became freeze, submit, fawn. Freeze, submit, fawn. Please people, make people happy. Be better. Be sexier. Be  domineering in areas. Show power.

Kiran Prasad (06:32)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (06:48)

But it was all bravado, it was all false bravado because it was all coming from a very scared, insecure place. And I think another thing that happens is that when you are raped or molested as a child at a very young age, you either become very hyper-sexualized or you sort of become...

Kiran Prasad (06:54)

and I think another thing that happens is that when you are raped or molested as a child at a very young age, you either become very sexualized or sort of

Nadia Jamil (07:13)

you sort of freeze up to the whole idea of sex. I became very, very hyper-sexualized

Kiran Prasad (07:13)

I don't know, up with the whole idea I became very, happy.

Nadia Jamil (07:18)

as well very early. And Alongside the sexual abuse, I mean, there was a guy, another guy who worked at the house, would dangle my brother and me from the top window outside our window. He would dangle us from our ankles and threaten to throw us on the... there was a cement... ⁓

Kiran Prasad (07:19)

Yeah.

My goodness! Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (07:37)

backyard and there was that under our heads and we were dangling and we were screaming and...

Physical abuse, it was not sexual abuse.

all hanging. And the thing is, which I've learned now, as somebody working in child protection, we normalize the most awful abnormal things when they happen to us enough. And I think what happened to me was I normalized abuse. I know, I mean, it seems, I say it so nonchalantly that he was hanging us from the top story of this four story building

dangling us upside down from our ankles. But it was horrifying. And it's you know, that particular incident still occurs in my nightmares. I mean, I've healed from everything else. But that particular incident, and obviously, no matter how much you heal and no matter how much you reframe and move on and thrive, there are wounds that will reoccur,

they will surface. abuse. But now I have the techniques and the knowledge, to recognize A, what does cause that retraumatization or triggering. Secondly, if it does occur, how do I cope with it? How do I handle it resourcefully? So I can do that on my own now. But I think growing up,

Kiran Prasad (08:41)

But now I have the knowledge to recognize what does.

I think this is on my own map. Growing

up, what happened is that I grew up into somebody who was not...

Nadia Jamil (09:01)

what happened is that I grew up into somebody who was locked into

the mental age of a four year old in my 40s. And then because the abuse again reoccurred when I was 17, 18, 19, with a boy in college. And that was very violent. That was horrible. I think a part of me got stuck at 17,

Kiran Prasad (09:11)

and then before, again, we have a dynamic.

Mm-hmm.

no.

Nadia Jamil (09:30)

you know, emotionally. So I don't think I actually grew up and I didn't find my adult woman voice, this voice that you're hearing, I didn't discover this voice, I'm so pleased by it, till I was 50. It took me that long.

Kiran Prasad (09:39)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's interesting

That seems to be the age like that's when I found my empowerment too. It's strange 50. I don't know why it's 50.

Nadia Jamil (09:52)

What an amazing age. I am so

excited by what started happening to me in my 40s and what happened to me in my 50s. I am so excited that I'm only like really looking forward to what magic can happen in my 60s now. I'm like, it can only get better.

Kiran Prasad (10:03)

Mm-hmm.

Kiran Prasad (10:10)

That's wonderful!

Kiran Prasad (10:13)

So it obviously affected you as a child and in later years. And in other relationships, It would affect, I would think other relationships. too.

Nadia Jamil (10:18)

It devastated me. Yes. It

I think there was an exercise I did when I did my NLP master coach. I did this exercise in class. I was a demo. And she would always say, our teacher always says, bring it on a scale of one to 10, bring a two or a three so that everybody is not like freaking out.

But when I did this, God bless everybody in the class, coz I was a sobbing wreck,

there was no two or three in my life. I was suicidal. I'd had it with my fears and my insecurities. And there's this exercise in NLP called perceptual positions in which you sit opposite whatever is troubling you, whether it could be a situation, it could be money, it could be a parent, it could be a spouse, it could be a partner. For me, I chose the four year old version of myself. I wanted to speak to her.

And I gave it to her. I told her, I'm so effing sick of you. You have ruined my relationships. have made me clingy. You have made me frightened and scared. You are nothing but a big cross that I have to bear. And I can't stand you. I wish you were dead. And you are horrible, horrible. You're this hideous burden that I have to carry for the rest of my life.

Kiran Prasad (11:32)

nothing but a big, you know, pocket-arrow bear.

Nadia Jamil (11:48)

And you ruin everything, everything I do, everywhere I go, anywhere I'm in public, you bring out fear in me, you bring out shame in me, you're pathetic, I hate you. And I just went, I went off on her. And then you have to shake it off, and then you have to sit in the position of the situation or the individual who's heard this.

Kiran Prasad (11:53)

how sad.

Yeah, there's no self-love at that time.

Nadia Jamil (12:10)

And you

have to then embody that person or that situation. And for me, I think because I'm an actor or maybe it happens with everyone coz it happens with my clients very easily as well, immediately I embodied my four year old self. And I was sitting there and I was looking across at the empty chair, listening to 48 year old Nado saying these things. I just looked at her and I said, wow.

Kiran Prasad (12:16)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (12:39)

You're a child protection activist, innit? Wow! You're a child protection worker. Just hear yourself. This is how you're speaking to a four year old who's been raped. You are the biggest fraud, the biggest hypocrite, the biggest fake I've ever met in my life. I'm not the one who shames you. You shame me. I'm ashamed of who I grew up to be.

And honestly, you can't go back and change what happened to me. But if you could just sort out 48 year old you and stop exposing us to these clowns who like rip out our guts and then, you know, live. It was visceral the way that child spoke to me. to these horrible, cruel individuals that you choose as an adult woman, you choose to put us through this. You choose to make us go through these

abusive relationships.

are an adult. I was a child. You're grown up and you're you're bringing them into our life and you're the biggest hypocrite. So just listened to her and I was shattered and I just didn't know what to say and then it has to end on the person who started it. So it goes back to me and I just apologized to her and for me that was a changing point because I realized that the only person accountable

Kiran Prasad (13:39)

Hmm... Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (14:04)

today is me.

Kiran Prasad (14:06)

Wow, what an amazing, incredible exercise to do. I've experienced something, doing something similar to that a while back.

Now, we know that abuse can take away our power from us. So this must have felt really empowering.

Nadia Jamil (14:24)

there is no trauma, there is nothing that happened in my past, there is no individual that existed, exists or will exist that can ever, ever, take power over how I feel again. I have the power to decide what things mean to me. After that, the process for me started and  the process of forgiveness started, forgiving my mom.

Kiran Prasad (14:46)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (14:47)

For some reason I blamed her far more than my father, although they were both accountable. But I let my dad, I let him off everything. The next step was my mom and her and my healing. And then I had a hypnosis and the hypnosis was very traumatizing. It retraumatized me for two weeks because everything that my subconscious mind had shut off and was just a flash of the touch of somebody

the side or something just a vague flash suddenly became every single, every single second, every smell, every feeling became alive after the hypnosis. The hypnotherapist he said what do you want? I want to stop feeling panic.

Then took me back to the first time I ever felt real panic. And it was then. 

I was in such pain that I could not, I mean, I was, my uterus was aching, my womb was aching. I was doubling up in pain. I had to call up my own NLP coach, who's fantastic, Sara Oswani, and ask her what to do. And she grounded me, you know, she helped me own my body in the way that I never have before.

Kiran Prasad (15:45)

⁓ my goodness.

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (16:01)

And after those two weeks, those hideous two weeks, the healing really kicked in because those memories now have no emotional hold on over me. It's like there's been a cut. It's like almost an operation where my emotions have been cut off from whatever happened when I was four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 17, 18, 19.

Kiran Prasad (16:29)

and

Nadia Jamil (16:29)

So there's no anger. There's no shame, there's no sadness, there's nothing.

Kiran Prasad (16:33)

you say you

put up a wall? Like, did you put up a wall with people?

Nadia Jamil (16:37)

No,

I don't think I put up a wall at all. In fact, I think for 48 years, for 44 years, I was raw, just exposing it all, feeling it all. And what happens with the hypnosis and with the other techniques is what in psychology or in mental health we refer to as a reframe. So the whole situation, whatever occurred in the past has been reframed for me.

Kiran Prasad (16:44)

Mm.

Nadia Jamil (17:04)

It's a reference point for me now that this is what happened and because of this, this happened. Because over the last three years, the neural pathways that I've been developing have strengthened and strengthened and strengthened. And new habits have formed, and the new meanings have formed, and the new meaning that I have assigned to my rape when I was four years old, right, is one that does not involve my feelings now.

It just, it doesn't require my feelings to be. I need to feel fierce empathy and fierce love and fierce sense of protection for the child who's inside me. I much more boundaried in my relationships, whether it's with my husband or my children or my mother or...

my father's you know, passed away, but whoever it is with. There is a sense  of...

charge and nothing that has happened to me in my past affects me anymore.

I allow feelings to move through me now. So before I used to identify myself with feelings. I am anxious. I am panicked. I am sad. I am angry. Now my language is different. Now my language is transformational and different. I am feeling angry. I am feeling sad. I'm feeling anxious. If I'm getting late and I have to catch a plane, I might even be feeling panic. But I am not panic. That's not me.

If I make it into an identity, then those feelings will sit with me and sit with me and sit with me. And they will become a part of my identity. So that, I'm very careful about my language.

Kiran Prasad (18:48)

Yeah,

Nadia Jamil (18:49)

The experiences that stayed with me the longest because of the child abuse, I think if I look back and dig deep,

was a sense of deep loneliness. There was a sense of ugliness. Feeling ugly. There was a lot of shame. So I was very insecure. In school I made sure I was the class clown. So that everybody... I made people laugh at me. So that I don't feel that they're laughing at me without me knowing it.

So I would just be the class clown and be silly and do things for attention instead of waiting to be attacked.

Yeah, and that's why my relationship with fame is very insidious as well. I don't seek out fame. Because for the longest time for me, what validation looked like was that clapping of the hand after a performance or that validation or that she's such a good actor or  you were so good in that performance, that ovation. It became something that I...

Kiran Prasad (19:49)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (20:00)

that rescued me. So once I'd healed and I'm still in the process of always, always, always, I'm in the process of healing, but once I'd got to a place where I saw that and recognized what that external validation was and how dangerous it could be and how important it was for me to be someone outside of that fame and outside of that external validation, outside of just being the performer. You know, so... 

Kiran Prasad (20:08)

Mm.

Nadia Jamil (20:30)

it became very important for me to do stuff that I respect, that I can validate, or that my work validates, not anybody else. Unless it's a great mentor whose opinion and guidance really, really matters to me. And some of my mentors are children. So, I think...

mostly the admiration and the respect and the  validation that I truly, value in life today comes to me from the children I work with and from my own children, whether it's my five year old or from the animals I work with. Because if they feel safe with me, then that is important to me.

Kiran Prasad (21:16)

Tell us more about that. How the kids you work with help heal you?

Nadia Jamil (21:23)

I started working with children when I was 17. And I worked with children as a volunteer at the Mother Teresa Home and then the SOS Homes and then the Edhi Foundation, the Bali Foundation, and now the Child Protection Bureau of Punjab. And I think the reason I started working with children was because they rescued me.

I felt and I did not feel safe with adults. I only felt safe with them and then laughing with them, joking with them. If they had been abused, if they had suffered, suffering with them and you know going through that process with them.

Now it's a lot more, I think, wholesome the relationship because now I'm working for them and with them and not because I need them. I think I'm working now because I want them to learn how to thrive.

Kiran Prasad (22:20)

I'm so glad that you and the kids you worked with have helped each other heal. So how about your own kids, Nadia? How have they helped change your life?

Nadia Jamil (22:36)

I was 30 when I had my first boy.

And he immediately anchored me because he gave me this purpose

Kiran Prasad (22:46)

⁓

Nadia Jamil (22:51)

that was outside of me and worrying about me and my four year old Nadia who I did not know how the hell to deal with. So this was somebody. But I think because I'd not done the healing work on myself, I was a very neurotic mother. I was very playful. I was very childlike. I was a lot of fun. There were no boundaries. There were very few rules. I couldn't give a toss about school or work or whatever, you know.

Kiran Prasad (23:18)

Mm.

Nadia Jamil (23:18)

So it was fun, but it was a bit of an emotional rollercoaster for them because when I was down, I was down and I was angry, I was angry when I was, let's go play. and I would be bouncing on jumping castles together. And I think

it was a lot of fun for the boys. I had the second one four years later. I loved having my boys. I mean, the whole process of childbirth I found fascinating. I was very scared of it. I met this incredible online midwife, Paul Golden from Norway. No, New Zealand,

and he was there for the process while I was giving birth as well. and then as was my midwife. and it was such an organic process. And that feeling. I'm not one for bungee jumping and paragliding and all of that. I don't even like roller coasters. I can't even sit on a merry-go-round. I don't like risking my life ever.

Kiran Prasad (24:09)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (24:18)

I do not do that. I'm boring. So for me,

Kiran Prasad (24:20)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (24:23)

was on stage. And every time I'm on stage I feel that adrenaline rush. I feel this fearlessness when I'm on stage. That people I think who like rock climbing or bungee jumping or mountain Everest climbing must feel, this fearlessness. There's just this incredible

Kiran Prasad (24:24)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (24:44)

rise to the challenge kind of a feeling and this need to and this desire to connect with the audience.

And I think it used to be a sense of control, but now it's a sense of connection because I don't need the control anymore. And it was that kind of adrenaline rush that I felt with my boys giving birth. What a magnificent feeling.

And now I think that nurturing that I anchored in myself when I was giving birth, I was able to do when I adopted Noor. Many years later, my eldest is 24, then the second one is 19 and Noor is was five yesterday.

Kiran Prasad (25:06)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (25:22)

I work in an orphanage, I work with the Punjab government and I work with the, we don't use the word orphanage, I work with the child bureaus, protection bureaus, and they aren't all orphans anyway. There's a lot of children who've been abandoned and abused by parents who do exist, biological parents. And Noor was one of the children at the bureau and I've never felt this desire to adopt one of the children there because I had two biological sons and the waiting list

for the parents who've not had any children and want to adopt is so long and it's a dire process. It's not an easy process. And so there's always been the sense that these children belong to a good deserving couple that doesn't have children. So I've never felt the greed to own or have one of the, and the most beautiful children, most stunning,

Kiran Prasad (26:04)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (26:13)

gorgeous children. I was living in Cambridge and I would come back in the summers and work at the orphanage. And my best friend whose daughter is also from the same bureau, she's also got two biological sons and a 13 year old daughter. This friend of mine is my daughter's godmother.

And she said to me, ah well you know, this beautiful baby girl, you're gonna fall in love. You're gonna want her. She's blind, but you're gonna fall in love. She's got these huge eyes and now she can't see. And when I landed, two days after I landed, she was like, I told you about this baby girl and I have to take her to the ophthalmologist. Do you wanna come?

Kiran Prasad (26:32)

I'm telling you, you're He's blind. and when I landed, I told you about the baby girl. had to take her ophthalmologist. She said,

come. I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on.

Nadia Jamil (26:52)

So said, yeah, yeah, yeah, come on. we

went and picked her up and she was beautiful. ⁓ this cherub. And the most happy, confident, giggly, gurgly baby. Very, very sensitive to sound and energy. And my voice is very loud and my energy was very gregarious. And I had to tone it down with her. She toned me down. She kind of...

Kiran Prasad (26:55)

you

Nadia Jamil (27:20)

you know, filed my rough edges and

I had to because otherwise she would be like, you know, startled by my sound and my energy.

Kiran Prasad (27:31)

Yeah,

Nadia Jamil (27:31)

So when you took her to the doctor at that time I just thought oh my God how beautiful she is and and da da da da da, and I went back and I dropped her back. But the doctor said to me bring her tomorrow, we need to do another procedure on on her under general anesthesia, and I need to check how bad the nerve damage is. So I said, yeah, I'll take her bring her along. So the next day I picked her up I brought her to the

ophthalmologist and he did the procedure and I was watching the procedure on a TV, small TV screen outside the operation theater and I couldn't stop crying. I swear even now when I think about it I couldn't stop crying. It's like my heart was having, my heart was having contractions.

It was insane and I started speaking out loudly to myself while I was crying and I said, I have a very strong faith in the divine. And I just started speaking and I started saying, so this is what you have planned for me. This is my path.

My marriage was in a rocky place. I was in Cambridge. I'd been there seven, eight years. I didn't think with my head. It was my heart brain that did all the thinking, the doing, everything.

I said to my husband, I'm adopting her. just walked into the house and I announced it, that I'm adopting her. If you're in, in, you're out, you're out.

Kiran Prasad (28:55)

wow.

Nadia Jamil (28:57)

I was prepared for World War III. Look at how the universe works Kiran, it's insane.

And now here I am

five years later in a joint family system living in the room next to my mom-in-law, you know,

Kiran Prasad (29:13)

huh.

Nadia Jamil (29:14)

with all my kids and my dog and never, never, if you told me I'd be living in a joint family system in my life.

And it's fantastic, you know, and it's just working seamlessly. And for the time that two years, it took me two years for the boys to get their studies sorted out and for me to come here, And the boys also came with me post cancer, post everything.

Kiran Prasad (29:38)

You mentioned the cancer because that's something we hadn't brought up because you've survived so much because you're also a breast cancer survivor, right?

Nadia Jamil (29:40)

Yes, yes.

Yeah.

Kiran Prasad (29:50)

You're an amazing woman.

Nadia Jamil (29:52)

I I get get a lot of love for getting cancer in COVID and I understand that. I had my 13 year

After my surgery and my first chemo, my mom joined me. I don't know how she got a flight. flight, because all the airports had shut down and there were these bubbles. My cancer was not about cancer. It was about depression and about heartbreak and about  surviving a heartbreak and surviving depression and learning that... 

Kiran Prasad (30:15)

⁓ That's right.

Nadia Jamil (30:25)

the only person answerable for what happens to me at this age is me. So, and I am now...

accountable for my peace of mind and my happiness. I think that was the journey because cancer broke me. I was so depressed, so sad, so alone, so bitter and so frightened. And everything that I'd gone through when I was four years old seemed to be coming back. You know, abandonment, the sense of abandonment, that parents will go out and bad things will happen to me. People will not be there

and bad things will happen to my body. And then after the last chemo, I went into sepsis. I got sepsis, my pick line got infected, and I went into coma. They hadn't realized that I'd gotten diabetes. It was after I came out of coma, that is when, for me, the journey is entirely uphill. Every minute since then has been

Kiran Prasad (31:14)

no.

Nadia Jamil (31:32)

just about

I think when you are so close to losing life, you realize when I say that Kiran, you and I might lose our life, what is the first thing, the very first thing, it's your breath. Because that's what I didn't have. That's what I was on a machine for that the NHS was paying

Kiran Prasad (31:49)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (31:55)

you lakhs and lakhs of rupees per minute

for me to be able to breathe. And here you and I are, we're just doing it for free as if it's the easiest thing in the world. And if If I couldn't do it, I would be dead. So it's my breath. And I think for hours when I was able to breathe on my own, able to swallow on my own,

Kiran Prasad (32:03)

Yeah, we take it for granted. We really take these things for

Nadia Jamil (32:15)

it would just dawn upon me, you know, the, bounties that we deny ourselves, we don't even look at them. We just, you know, our sight, our capacity to feel, our capacity to smile at one another, our capacity to drink water or look at the sunlight and just bask in it.

Kiran Prasad (32:35)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (32:42)

Even if it's in a smog-filled Lahore. You know, it's just still, there was one tree, one tree, my husband was pushing the wheelchair when I came out of the hospital and I'd seen no sky, I'd seen no trees and there was this bleak London sky, Cambridge sky, and this one measly little tree. And that tree looked like a goddess to me. I just

Kiran Prasad (33:01)

I

Mm.

Nadia Jamil (33:09)

cried

when I saw it. That little weak shrub of a tree was so powerful and so strong and it meant so much to me. And there's a video, it's on my Instagram of the day he wheeled me out and how I can't get over, I'm so happy, I'm so excited, I'm like I made it. And there's a reminder in that, that none of it has been my choice, not getting the cancer,

Kiran Prasad (33:25)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (33:38)

not getting it in COVID, not getting in a coma and surviving it. That wasn't my choice either. The same medicines that were given to me were given to other people who have not made it. So I think we're all warriors. And some of us warriors make it out alive and some of us warriors don't make it out alive. But

Kiran Prasad (33:49)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (34:00)

none of us is better than the ones who didn't make it. It's luck of the draw. It's not that I was a better fighter than somebody else. It's not that at all. It's not like my willpower was more than somebody else's. It's not that at all. I think the people who died  fighting cancer in many ways are more powerful, are more bigger warriors

Kiran Prasad (34:22)

many ways of my own, I'm more a prison

Nadia Jamil (34:25)

than I could ever be because they gave up their life until their last breath they were fighting it out. And may I always be like that, may I always be, have that spirit.

Kiran Prasad (34:26)

than I could ever be, because it gave up the life, it gave up rest, can I always be that, and I always have that.

Nadia Jamil (34:36)

And also I think for me, the term you're such a fighter, you're such a warrior, I'm not a fighter. I didn't fight. I cried, I was scared, I was lost, I was depressed. The medicines worked on me. That's all.

I think what I chose to do after surviving, that is what made the difference. When I chose to no longer just be survivor.

Let me tell you the battle doesn't end with cancer, the battle doesn't end with cancer. That is when the battle to walk again, the battle to...

to know that you will feel pain for the rest of your life and that it's a part of life. To know that you will be on these hormone treatments for like 10 years but you will have to just, it's a part of life. To know that you have diabetes because of it and it's a part of life. And how do you cope with it? And then there comes a time when you don't want to be somebody just coping with it.

Kiran Prasad (35:20)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (35:34)

You want to be someone really, really basking in the joy of living. And I think thriver is a consistent, choice.

Kiran Prasad (35:41)

you came to that.

Nadia Jamil (35:44)

It's not that I don't feel grief. It's not that I don't lose it sometimes. It's how those things just pass through me really quickly and I'm able to come back to the place I want to be. And that, where is that?

Where is where I want to be? I want to be at home with Nadia Jamil. And Nadia Jamil is at home when she's at peace with herself. I have learned that I love learning. I love studying. I love, you know, I'm applying to uni again. I'm loving my practice. I'm giving lots of talks on leadership, leadership and resilience, and courage, and reframing,

Kiran Prasad (36:00)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (36:27)

and choosing the kind of person you want to be and choosing who you want to be, where you want to be and how to be there. For every one of us, it's going to be a different formula of how to get there. But  get there, we can.

Kiran Prasad (36:32)

So what ways

have helped you most to get here because this is what everybody would want to know, how have you, what's most helped?

Nadia Jamil (36:41)

Without a doubt in my mind number one was NLP.

The first one was NLP and I'll say this it wasn't just NLP. It was NLP with that amazing teacher of mine Aliyah Mohyeddin. There is no better teacher on earth for NLP. I think the way that woman teaches NLP and hypnosis and hypnotherapy and timeline therapy. The way she teaches it to you, it is in every

Kiran Prasad (36:51)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (37:11)

atom of your body. You become it. You transform your life just by being in her classroom, just by absorbing the lessons that she's giving you in that classroom. You transform. You come out a different person. And I say this for every single one of us. How did I come into NLP? I went to my cousin who's an NLP master coach and I said to her, do something. Coach me. I wanna die. Coach me.

Kiran Prasad (37:20)

So.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm.

Nadia Jamil (37:43)

And she looked at me and I have her to thanks for this because she said, nope, I'm not going to coach you. You're gonna go and you're gonna do what I did. You're gonna, you're gonna take the course.

was the game changer. And then during my NLP course, I had this introduction to mBIT which is Applied Neuroscience.

Kiran Prasad (37:59)

That's the end of the

Nadia Jamil (38:04)

I became an mBIT master coach, and now I'm an mBIT trainer so I can make mBIT coaches.

Kiran Prasad (38:10)

Nadia, for those who don't know what mBIT or NLP are, if you could just briefly explain,  starting with mBIT.

Nadia Jamil (38:20)

mBIT is Multiple Brain Integration Techniques

and it's applied neuroscience. It is  a heart-led scientific approach to behavior processing. It teaches you that your head, which you're all familiar with, but you have a neural network around your heart.

Kiran Prasad (38:35)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (38:42)

You have neurons firing, you have ganglia, you have everything that makes a brain, memory, storage around your heart and you have an enteric one in your gut. And there are other systems as well, you learn about your autonomic nervous system and all but primarily you learn about these three brains first. And in mBIT we say that the heart is the emperor. So every decision you make for yourself, for others, for your children, for the environment...

let it start from the heart. Let it start from a place of empathy, and love, and kindness. And the word we use in mBIT is compassion. Compassion for yourself, compassion for the world around you. The second brain then is the general

which is your head. And the general, the heart will make the decision, take it to the general. The general will take the decision and will create a creative strategy around it. A resourceful creative strategy. Data processing, information, knowledge, language, that's all  head. People who are too wordy, people who are analyzing all the time, overthinking in their head, stuck, stuck, looping in stories, head. Stories are all in the head. And

the general will make a good strategy and then you take it down to the gut. And gut is courage. Gut is your soldier. Soldier has to do the action or not take the action. Sometimes the soldier does not trust the decision of the emperor and the general, and the soldier does not move. The soldier will procrastinate or the soldier will just not feel safe enough to move. So you have to convince the soldier. You have to go back to the heart

Kiran Prasad (40:04)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (40:28)

and go back to the head. It's

all about aligning. Aligning so that your heart, your head, and your gut are aligned. So I think it's about your inner wisdom waking up and it's about communicating with yourself. Because you communicate with your inner wisdom consistently as an mBIT coach and as an mBIT coachee. My clients wake up.

Kiran Prasad (40:32)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (40:49)

They wake themselves up to their own inner wisdom. And it's incredible to see where they take themselves.

So I think Reb

Kiran Prasad (40:57)

think that

Nadia Jamil (40:58)

who's my mBIT coach and trainer,

was the second person who really  facilitated my journey.

Kiran Prasad (41:01)

were stepping into a very facilitated area.

Nadia Jamil (41:06)

Reb and Mark. Mark was a very, very, very amazing teacher, her husband.

Anyhow, I'm super, super aware now. I know when it's become too much doing, and listening, and analyzing, and thinking. And I know when I need to go up into the mountains now and just be with Nadia. That's it.

We're supposed to be a part of nature. We're very much a part of nature. We must learn and allow it to nurture us.

Kiran Prasad (41:33)

Yes, nature is great for taking us out of our head and aligning us with ourselves. And I just love the analogy you gave of the emperor, general, and soldier to represent our three brains. You mentioned the heart, head, and gut and how they all work together. So that's mBIT in a nutshell. How about NLP now?

And for those listeners who want to learn more,

Kiran Prasad (42:05)

I've already, I have an earlier episode

Kiran Prasad (42:08)

with that amazing NLP teacher of yours, Aliyah Mohyeddin.

Kiran Prasad (42:13)

But if you could just briefly explain?

Kiran Prasad (42:17)

what would you say it is?

Nadia Jamil (42:18)

NLP is Neurolinguistic

Programming. Neuro, your head brain, your head. Linguistic, language. Programming. Again, it's behavioral programming, and habit forming, and pattern forming through techniques, through processes, and mostly through language. So for example the language, I am feeling anxious as opposed to I am anxious.

Or if I say, I don't want to be angry. I don't want to be hungry. I don't want to be sad. What if I tell you, whatever you do right now, Kiran, don't think of a pink elephant. What does your subconscious mind bring up?

Kiran Prasad (43:05)

I'm gonna think of a pink elephant.

Nadia Jamil (43:07)

Because the subconscious mind doesn't understand a negative, so instead of when I say I don't want to be hungry, I don't want to be sad, I don't want to be angry, all my subconscious brain is repeatedly hearing is hungry, sad, angry. Hungry, sad, angry. So instead of that, what do I say? I'm committed to peace. I'm committed to being nourished. I'm committed to being joyful. I'm committed to being healthy.

Kiran Prasad (43:21)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (43:38)

These are things I want to be committed to, I am committed to, and I'm working towards. And I want to keep turning towards where I want to be, not looking at where I don't want to be. Because otherwise that's where I'll end And also I think NLP is more  that.

It also, I mean, a lot of trance language, hypnotic language sort of  basis for hypnosis and trance and all come out of NLP. And I think the marriage between NLP and mBIT is beautiful because if you've done NLP before,

and then you do mBIT, it's just an added whammy because you're not just heart led and being able to align yourself, but you also have equipped yourself with the language and the tools, and the resources.

Kiran Prasad (44:18)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (44:31)

It's not my job to rescue anyone.

people or I facilitate people to help themselves. They do the work on themselves. It's like being an awakener, waking people up to the power they have,

to be where they want to be and take themselves there. They don't need anyone else to take them there.

Yeah. And now I take these transformational retreats to Hunza, up in the mountains, the Himalayas and  the Karakoram Range, where 15, 16 women come with their stories, with their pain, with their need to transform, their need to let go. And it's a six day course in which I introduce NLP, I introduce mBIT and applied neuroscience, I introduce breathing techniques.

One of the main things you learn in mBIT is coherence breathing and how to bring balance and coherence to your nervous system. And then on the fifth day, everybody's got to leave their phone back in their rooms at the beautiful resort we live at. Then we take them out to a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful spot

in the Karakorum mountain range with rivers and mountains and snow-peaked glades, and forests, and they have to be quiet, utter silence from sunset to sunrise. Oh what a joy it is to see them on that fifth day with all the knowledge they've learned across the four days really

being, and living, and becoming, and enjoying nature without having to take photographs or talk or share or distract themselves from the beauty of just being part of it.

Kiran Prasad (46:23)

So being more present

and being rather than just doing. Yeah. Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (46:27)

Yes, yes. It's beautiful. And

then on 6th day you all celebrate. But it's a wonderful celebration of connection and womanhood. And I think another thing I've learned Kiran, that I didn't know in my teens maybe or in my 20s or 30s even is how important my female best friends are today too.

Kiran Prasad (46:40)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (46:50)

there for each other.

 My best friend, my close girlfriends, I think they are just so important. So important. I mean, I love my husband, I love my marriage. I love my sons, I love my children. But I know that in my old age, and I know that as I shift from this version of myself to the next version of myself,

the people who will move through it most easily with me are my girlfriends.

Kiran Prasad (47:20)

Yes, definitely. We all need those, that connection with others, especially our close friends. That's so important.

Nadia, you've come so far from that little girl you were in childhood.

Such an amazing, courageous journey you've had from victim to survivor to now thriver. And you'd said how, when you did that activity, how you spoke so brutally to little Nadia.

 Well, if you could speak to her again now or to any child facing sexual abuse, what would you say to them?

Nadia Jamil (48:01)

I love you. I want you to learn with me how to love you and how incredibly beautiful you are. I don't want to say it to you. I want you to learn how amazing you are, how beautiful you are. I want you to able to feel it and celebrate it and enjoy it.

And I want you to know that not only will it be okay,

it will be peaceful. You don't have to die to find peace. You will find peace inside you and it's going to be beautiful. You will have a beautiful, beautiful life. Trust me.

Kiran Prasad (48:44)

How lovely. I love that. And that you don't have to die to find peace. What a hopeful message for people in a dark place right now.

Kiran Prasad (48:55)

And I think somewhere I've heard you say that don't let that define you, don't let that abuse define who you are.

Nadia Jamil (49:00)

Yes.

I think that for me when I work with children who have been raped and abused,

Kiran Prasad (49:06)

get around

Nadia Jamil (49:07)

I think about

here's a three year old who cannot talk about what happened to her or him. There's more little boys than little girls in my line of work here. Sometimes he or she will draw something and there's a lot of drawings, a lot of painting, a lot of storytelling. There's a lot of storytelling about in which I try and

Kiran Prasad (49:29)

Mm-hmm. There's a lot of stories having about, in the mid-at-time,

Nadia Jamil (49:34)

work on reframing, reframing what the future will look like. Learning about, so after developing a rapport, learning about, okay what is this child's niche? Okay, this child is  born gymnast,

Kiran Prasad (49:35)

work on research, research, what the teacher can look like, learning about, developing the rapport, learning about what they can say about the kind of teaching that I'm doing.

Nadia Jamil (49:49)

gymnastics. So if a 10 year old has been abused and that 10 year old is playing up at school and rebelling, and abusing, and hitting, and  being really, really destructive in the...

in the classes as well with the other kids. So it's not, you don't punish him. You read, you read the room, you read him and you realize, okay, what's this about? And you say, okay, come into my room and I'm going, I have to be at a fashion show and I need you to design something for me and there'll be lots of TV cameras. Can you help me wear something? And he'll help. But you realize, okay, energy level, interest level, okay, it's come from a four to a six, but it's still not a nine.

And then suddenly one day you put him in a situation where he's doing gymnastics or something and the interest level hits a nine, and then it's a ten. And then this kid is a born gymnast. And the next thing you know, he's an international gymnastics superstar and his parents are like, like, oh my God! There years later, I'm getting his sort of  photographs winning medals abroad. So it's about reframing.

Kiran Prasad (50:42)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (51:00)

That does not mean that later on in life when this child is ready to talk about what happened, that conversation should not happen. It does need to happen. That is where things went wrong with me. I did reframe. I did. I became an actor and I was fearless on stage and I think that's what rescued me. And I worked with children and that's what rescued me. But I did not do the work on what happened to me, how it broke me,

how it made me toxic, and how can I move away from these feelings that I have attached to these experiences. Because you can't move away from the experiences, Kiran. The experiences will happen, they're in your you know, muscular nervous system. My red flag for men who are predators is like this. The body language is like immediate.

Kiran Prasad (51:58)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (51:58)

But I can change the way.. and I can change the feelings and emotions attached to what happened. And I can control the emotions and feelings that are happening now. So how can I teach them that later on after the reframing work is done and they're in a safe place? Then the work will continue. As it continues on me to date. I still do the work for myself. It's not over because the experience did happen.

Kiran Prasad (52:14)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (52:28)

And the feelings will keep resurfacing. The work needs to continue and that's fine. If my insulin needs to continue or my cancer drug has to continue for 10 years, it's just part of the treatment.

Kiran Prasad (52:33)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (52:46)

So when you are raped, when you go through trauma, there will be treatments for the rest of your life. Similarly, when you go through a trauma to your heart, because it's not just a trauma to your body, it's a trauma to your heart. It's a trauma primarily to your nervous system when you're that young.

And your nervous system is just developing then. So that's why you become somebody whose autonomic nervous system is dysregulated. So then it becomes a consistent treatment that you have to keep doing upon yourself and upon your nervous system. The breathing, the language, the NLP, the mBIT, the nature, all of that just is treatment for my nervous system.

Kiran Prasad (53:13)

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (53:38)

And most importantly, I think who I allow into my life now, and who I allow into my space, and who I allow near my children. And you ask me what kind of a mother that made me. it made me a fierce woman.

Kiran Prasad (53:49)

Yeah, did it make you

more overprotective because you don't want that the thing to happen to them?

Nadia Jamil (53:53)

I

I think I was very, very protective. We had the good touch, bad touch talk when my boys were four. And they were able to tell me, okay, this person makes me feel uncomfortable, mother. I'll tell my mother, if this person is in your home, because this is happening in your home, I will not bring my children to this house. Because this man is making my son feel uncomfortable. This is what he said, or this is what he did. So I was very, very, and the boys felt safe enough

Kiran Prasad (54:00)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (54:20)

to come and tell me if they ever felt uncomfortable. Actually, they only had to tell me once. Also, when they were growing up, I came on national television when the Kasur incidents happened initially and children were being raped in the thousands. 

And the media was handling it in this brutal way where they were questioning the children. So what happened to you? Tell us more about it? That's when I came on media and said, look, it happened to me and you need to stop it. I'm not defined by my rape. I'm an actor and you respected me all of this time because I was an actor. I'm on this television show right now, not because I was raped, but because you like my acting and you think I'm somebody. So  I need for these children to know this,

Kiran Prasad (54:42)

That's so hard for them.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (55:03)

that they are not defined by that situation. And then I went to Kasur and I worked with them and we talked about what do want to be and they said to me, ma'am, why aren't you talking to us about the scandal? Scandal? I said, what scandal? Do you know what scandal means? There's no scandal. And he said, yeah, but our honor's been blackened. I said, my honor's not been blackened, it happened to me.

I'm a mom, I'm a teacher, I'm an actor, I'm an activist, I'm a wife, I'm frickin fierce! There's nothing in the world that scares me. Don't tell me this, don't give me this. The person who did this to me, his honor never existed. He had none. So just remember, whoever did this to you, they had no honor. I won't listen to this.

Kiran Prasad (55:48)

How awful for those children to be questioned like that on national TV. Well, I'm sure you've been an incredible role model because you certainly haven't allowed abuse to define you.

Kiran Prasad (56:04)

Nadia, were you ever able to seek any kind of retribution from your abusers? Were they ever held accountable for any of their actions?

Nadia Jamil (56:13)

Bless London, the Cambridge police because when social services came around and when I spoke to them about my depression and I spoke to them because I was single momming the boys in England and I told them that something happened to me as a child and they referred my case to the police and the police came around to me and asked me if I wanted to file a case against these people. One of them was dead,

and he's in Pakistan anyway. But the abuse that happened to me in Pakistan, that man lives in London and

they said that because it happened in Pakistan, they can't do anything, but they can go to his house, and they can question his daughter, and they can question his wife, and find out if they are well and all and if they're safe. And I've never,

never even named them. And I think one of the reasons is, one of the reasons is my son. Because I just want my sons to be these mature men who won't go and try and shoot someone in the head or kill them. I don't want to emotionally dysregulate them any more than I have. I think my boys were too young when they found out

Kiran Prasad (57:17)

get it.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (57:26)

too much about their mother. Because

I was on national TV saying things and I think that it was not, I was not careful. Like I said, I was a young, child mother. I was a Peter Pan woman.

Kiran Prasad (57:30)

⁓ yeah.

Nadia Jamil (57:41)

Which is why I was not too controlling. So which is why my sons, I allowed them to be street smart. I allowed them to go through experiences. They've seen scary situations and they've seen themselves out of it. They're not too, I think they're not too coddled.

Kiran Prasad (58:01)

So you've helped empower them, give them that empowerment or helped them with that?

Nadia Jamil (58:06)

I think all I had to do to empower them was to let them be and let them make their mistakes

and I think I was too child-like to have that adult sense of judgement.

I think part of me chose to empower them that way, but a part of me was also too immature.

I think with my boys, they can speak to me about anything they want. There's no judgment, ever. There is no judgment. But there is a boundary with

Kiran Prasad (58:27)

I love that. I love that. They really need that. Kids need that.

Nadia Jamil (58:31)

as far as respect goes. In that I say, I'm not your friend. I'm your mom. You can tell me anything you want. I will not judge you. If I hate what you're doing, I will tell it. I will tell you I hate what you're doing. I won't hate you, but I don't, I do not like this thing that you're doing. But I will not disrespected.

Kiran Prasad (58:37)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I that.

Nadia Jamil (58:52)

I'm so excited by the men they'll turn out to be, empathetic, kind, loving, fierce, beautiful men. And I'm super excited about my daughter. This, this dream child of mine who can suddenly see at one and a half, her eyesight, it was just eye drops that we were using and she could see, she was born blind.

Kiran Prasad (58:59)

Mm.

Yeah.

it

Nadia Jamil (59:18)

And now she's at school, and she does ballet, and she does gymnastics.

Kiran Prasad (59:23)

That's.

Yeah.

Nadia Jamil (59:24)

Yeah.

Kiran Prasad (59:24)

Oh, that's so lovely. and, oh, if I...

Nadia Jamil (59:26)

And then I have 500 children at the bureau. I have three foster

children.

Kiran Prasad (59:31)

Gosh, I don't know how you find time for all that because I know your schedule with, you know, it was hard to get you on the show because you're filming all the time. We didn't say much about that. your TV series. Tell us a little bit about that before we end.

Nadia Jamil (59:44)

I work very little.

For TV, I work very little. I'll do one or two TV projects a year, and sometimes I'll be shooting a ad or I'll be shooting for a shout out or a  project,  video, whatever. But I'm also acting on stage. But I divide my time.

Kiran Prasad (1:00:08)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (1:00:10)

So there's children time, acting time, me time, friend time.

Kiran Prasad (1:00:14)

Yeah, you got to be really good at juggling your time for that. Well, we're kind of running out of time now talking about time.

Kiran Prasad (1:00:21)

How can listeners connect with you, stay in touch with you after the show, Nadia?

Nadia Jamil (1:00:27)

Yeah, Mmmm yeah, yeah, I'm on social media as NJ Lahori on Instagram and on Twitter. And I'm also on LinkedIn as Nadia So you can connect with me on any of these.

Kiran Prasad (1:00:27)

dear.

Nadia Jamil (1:00:44)

LinkedIn is most professional way that I generally do it. I have my own coaching practice, so I...

Kiran Prasad (1:00:48)

Okay, that sounds good.

Nadia Jamil (1:00:53)

coach children and adults and couple coaching in Lahore. and I still have my, I have a good number of clients from Cambridge. I have clients in UK and Canada, and one from Norway that I  do online. Yeah.

Kiran Prasad (1:00:55)

Mm-hmm.

Do you do it online as well? if people want to do this online?

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Kiran Prasad (1:01:16)

So Nadia, thank you for being here today, taking time out of your busy schedule.

Kiran Prasad (1:01:22)

time out of your

Nadia Jamil (1:01:21)

Thank you so much for the opportunity!

Kiran Prasad (1:01:24)

You really are a thriver and you've shown such vulnerability, such strength in talking about a topic that's not easy to talk about.

Nadia Jamil (1:01:34)

Something that I do like saying a lot that I'll end with is that  vulnerability, and being able to stay soft, and fragile, and breakable is a superpower.

Kiran Prasad (1:01:39)

Mm-hmm.

Nadia Jamil (1:01:45)

It's a superpower in this day and age.

Kiran Prasad (1:01:48)

It sure is. It sure is. And I really feel you live up to that Maya Angelou quote that you so love. And still I rise because you're a phoenix that's risen from the ashes. You certainly

Nadia Jamil (1:01:59)

I raise.

Kiran Prasad (1:02:03)

And thank you listeners for tuning in. I know this was a tough topic today. So if any of you are needing support, I've provided some resources in the show notes. There's also the Uprooted by Unwanted Change Facebook group

where listeners can support one another. Also, please share this episode with anyone you know who could benefit from it.

Kiran Prasad (1:02:29)

In the midst of chaos and uncertainty, may you find peace and rootedness.