Receiving the gifts you didn't chase with Reem Kubba

In this episode of The Unravelling, I’m joined by Reem Kubba — marketing strategist, SEO whisperer, founder of The SEO Room, and creator of Joy Voice AI.

But this conversation goes far beyond business.

Reem shares her journey from Iraq to New Zealand as a teenager navigating identity, cultural expectations, and belonging — without the internet, without a roadmap, and with only American movies as a guide. A high achiever who once topped her school in Iraq, she later found herself questioning success, underachieving, and trying to fit into worlds that didn’t quite fit her.

Having lived in six countries — Iraq, Jordan, New Zealand, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Australia — Reem reflects on how each culture shaped her worldview, her ambition, and her sense of self. She opens up about making life-changing declarations before having clear plans, trusting divine support when logic said otherwise, and repeatedly taking leaps that others didn’t understand.

We talk candidly about her lowest point — when outward success masked inner emptiness — and how EMDR therapy became a turning point in reconnecting with herself beyond roles, titles, and external validation. Reem shares powerful insights about receiving versus striving, why business is the greatest personal development journey there is, and how learning to be okay with failure changed everything.

This episode is a beautiful exploration of faith, identity, unravelling old beliefs, and learning to listen to your inner voice — not the loud one shaped by culture and expectation, but the quiet whisper that knows what you need to release next.

If you’ve ever done “all the right things” and still felt unfulfilled… this one’s for you.

 Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Unravelling: The Diary of a Midlife Mess.

If something resonated with you today, I’d love to hear your thoughts,  come join the conversation on Facebook and Instagram @theglowupguide_au or visit sharonwilkesburt.com
for more resources and support.

Don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review if you’re enjoying the journey so far!

Transcript

Hi Reem, thank you so much for joining me today. It's so lovely to meet new people and find out a little bit more. And I'm always so fascinated in the woman that, always the woman that I'm meeting today, but also the versions of you that came before. And of course we're all versions, there was always versions of us that came before.

And because this podcast is called Unraveling the Diary of a Midlife Mess, that was based on the fact that my diary was put to good use in recent years, or my journal, should I say, was put to good use as I went through the joys of perimenopause. That's joys of the very small J. So I'm going to start by my first question to you is going to be going right back. And it's like, what would I have found in teenage Ream's diary?

Reem Kubba (04:02.644)
a lot.

There's, you would find a lot of confusion, I think, trying to fit in into a mold, into society, just going back. I started my teenage years, I actually moved from Iraq to New Zealand. So there was a bit of a culture shock for me, language shock as well, I was learning English at the same time. So by the age of 13, I started high school there and also finished high school in New Zealand.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:27.424)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (04:35.726)
There was a lot of confusion, I guess, into my own identity. Where do I fit in? Where does, you know, the cultural norms, trying to get to know a new culture, a new country, everything was new. So, and then trying to fit into that mold, I guess, as a teenager, I think there is this natural behavior that you want to be a part of a tribe. And I was trying to find my tribe at the time. So, yeah, a lot of...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (04:50.719)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:01.419)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (05:05.942)
identity issues, I guess, figuring out what's my real identity. Because when I first arrived in New Zealand, I realized you start comparing of what is normal here, what is normal there. And you sort of just left with your own self and your own identity, looking at yourself in the mirror every day and realizing, like things could be done in one way or another. Because when you're in a certain culture and you haven't been exposed,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:08.008)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:25.142)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (05:35.374)
especially in the early years, like say the age of 13. And then suddenly you're exposed to a whole new world and it's very, very far away, you know? And there was a lot of, I imagined arriving in New Zealand, you know, back at that time there wasn't internet, there wasn't Google, there wasn't YouTube that you can look at where you're going. So you're really going to nowhere. And...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:36.939)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:44.862)
Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (05:59.893)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (06:02.262)
I remember the first time my parents said we're moving to New Zealand, I actually opened up the atlas and looked at where is New Zealand? I was looking at Europe and I was like, pretty sure it's somewhere in there. But no, it's at the end of the world. Yeah. I'm like, really, we're going there? How long is it going to take us to get there? And my vision of New Zealand was through American movies like Home Alone. I was obsessed with Home Alone and I imagined, you know, New York streets and

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (06:11.38)
Yeah. Other end of the world.

Reem Kubba (06:30.87)
And this is what I'm going to see, but I saw something totally different, totally different culture as well. so yeah, so I guess it's more of facing my identity, trying to fit in, looking at, the different cultures and where do I fit in between, you know, among all of these, attributes to culture, to how people behave, like behaviors, what's the norms and also trying to figure out what's my own identity.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (06:30.975)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (06:35.712)
Yeah

Reem Kubba (07:00.334)
at the same time.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (07:01.578)
Yeah, I mean that's huge for teenagers anyway, you know, regardless. mean, teenagers are always trying to fit in to find their tribe. And of course there's always that time when you go from like junior school to high school and there's always that kind of shuffle around.

regardless of having come from a different culture. mean, I remember being in the UK and we moved from one area to another area. It's only like a 50 miles difference, but in the UK accents changed so much. even in that 50 miles, I was, my accent was completely different to people that I was now at school with. And I remember I was about 12 at the time and just being desperate to speak like everybody else to kind of get rid of this, you know, this

broad Brummie accent that I had to try and speak like everybody else. Just for that, you say, finding your tribe, not being different, finding your identity. So I think it must be, I can't even imagine what that must be like to kind of have those challenges of just the language barriers to start with, learning a new language, the fitting in which teenagers are always trying to do regardless, but also just the cultural differences for you. That must have been, you know, that was quite a lot for a

Reem Kubba (07:42.303)
Hahaha

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (08:08.396)
a 13 year old to take on as well.

Reem Kubba (08:11.394)
Yeah, yeah. mean, looking back, I wouldn't change anything because I feel like every experience led me to who I am today. But if I was to see the version of me that was 13 years old and face her now, I would see a lot of, you know, not being confident, trying to work at everything. While as well, I was a very high achiever. So in year six, back in Iraq, you have

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (08:15.008)
No.

Reem Kubba (08:41.09)
a what is equivalent to ATAR but for primary school and you're trying to get scores. So there's national exams that happen at the end of the year. And based on that, you decide which, you could be going to a special high school. So I was pretty much an A student and then I got number one in the country. So all my grades were a hundred percent. So, and that was

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (08:46.124)
Okay.

Reem Kubba (09:08.974)
You that was a big deal at the time. didn't think when I was when I was in year six, I didn't think of it as a big deal, but everybody made a big deal about it. So going to that and going into high school and not under sitting in classes and not understanding what's going on. It was very frustrating for me as well, not to be the A student to be, you know, the only subject that I remember I would get full marks on would be maths because it's easy. You know, look at the numbers and you can figure it out. It's right. Maths is maths.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:16.161)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:29.119)
Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:33.962)
Yeah. Because maths is maths. Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (09:38.348)
You can figure it out. Everything else was just like, okay, I've got to learn the language. I've got to learn the technicalities of everything and then try to be an overachiever. And over time that actually changed me. I became an underachiever and I stopped caring so much about grades and school and yeah, it really changed and carved my personality.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (09:58.602)
Right.

Yeah, that's so interesting. as a young teen or even going into your teens, what were your hopes and dreams for, what did being a grown-up or success as a grown-up look like to you at that time?

Reem Kubba (10:18.314)
definitely like getting a good degree and being Arab culturally, everybody just wants you to be a doctor or an engineer. So that was in carved as well. I think my parents, yeah, I think my parents wanted me to be a doctor because I don't know what they saw in me. I was leaning more into engineering, things related to maths and physics. This is what I liked at the time. I remember when I was in

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (10:26.572)
Of course. Absolutely.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (10:40.064)
Yep.

Reem Kubba (10:46.702)
15, 16 years old, then they used people from universities, different universities would come and just present the programs of universities. So I would register to these seminars and just to figure out what I wanted to do. And one of them was about commerce. And I was like, no way I'm doing commerce. No way I'm doing business. This is not even me. So I was just headed towards engineering. And this is what I actually applied for. Engineering got accepted to it, but I didn't end up going into engineering. Yeah. So yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (11:15.468)
Okay, yeah. No, that means it's, think it's always so interesting when you look back on the, on the younger version of you and kind of what, what adulting looked like at that age or what kind of hopes and dreams, I guess you had for yourself at that age. Is there anything that you look back on your younger self and that makes you smile about her now?

Reem Kubba (11:38.318)
I think just taking it easy. Like I was very easy going as well. just taking it one day at a time. And I was definitely laid back. And I think that was an influence of the Kiwi culture as well. Everybody's just so laid back. There isn't much of a stress. so I, I adapted that. I'm generally speaking, rather than my early years in primary school.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (11:45.162)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:00.159)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (12:07.862)
I was the quiet one. I was the introverted one. I would do things slowly, take my time. I wasn't in a rush. I wasn't running around chasing something. And that melted well with the Kiwi culture that I was part of. I think looking back, probably that specific trait I would want to take on more as an adult. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:16.885)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (12:33.476)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's one of those things that we all aspire to, isn't it? Because of course the world is in such a rush and everybody's, you know, we're kind of, know, productivity hacks and all these different ways that you can go faster, you know, all of these things. And so I think to have that very chilled approach is actually, you know, it's, it's actually a gift. I mean, I've got a very chilled approach, but I just, I'm not quite sure if that's just laziness, but you know.

Reem Kubba (12:51.938)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:00.822)
just chill. What can I tell you?

Reem Kubba (13:02.786)
Yeah, it's always good to be chill. It's never good to be stressed. We do face a lot of stresses.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (13:07.442)
Yeah, for sure. We do. Yeah. So I think if you've got, if you can control yourself and you kind of have that, that more considered approach, that's, that's what that suits me anyway. So if you could sit now across from your 20 something year old self, is there anything particular you'd thank her for?

Reem Kubba (13:19.916)
Ha ha ha!

Reem Kubba (13:34.478)
That's a hard one. I think just being persistent. In my 20s, I did a lot of travels as well with two young kids. I had looking back to my 20s, so I'm now in my 40s, looking back, I just wondered how I did things like how did I take on two kids and you know, my husband, my family, as well as doing different

jobs as well as moving countries, not even moving houses. My life was super, super, super busy and it was unpredictable, but I was happy with the unpredictable part. I would just take it on and yeah, that I would probably thank the 20-year-old.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:21.022)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (14:29.144)
for doing these things because it exposed me to a lot of opportunities as well, having that open mind of exploring and trying new things. Having said that, I was probably highly stressed out as well, not getting enough sleep. yeah, but looking at the positive part, yeah, I've tried on, I was telling a friend the other day about it. So I was living at some stage in the UAE.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:29.225)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (14:43.761)
Yeah, yeah, for sure, yeah.

Reem Kubba (14:55.68)
in Dubai and then I was offered a job where doing corporate training for, you know, just the national training where we train government employees, basically. And I had to go to remote places. So I was offered and I can reject that as well. So I was offered to go to a city called Madame in the UAE. Most people, you say what's, I say that city's name, people actually don't recognize it as somewhere just in the middle of the desert.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:24.619)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (15:24.834)
And it's about an hour and a half drive, if I'm correct from my memory, from Dubai. And you actually drive in the middle of the desert and then camels stop you halfway through. like, it would be like somewhere from an Aladdin movie. It's very funny. Just looking back at this. Yeah. And then, you know, I found a driver that was willing to take me there. That was actually a basketball trainer. So she lived in Dubai and then worked there. And then she has...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (15:36.396)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have the picture.

Reem Kubba (15:52.29)
She had to come back. So it was good to have the company as well. But looking back at this while having two young kids as well and then making the drive about an hour and a half, two hours and then back and then training the people for about six hours. again, totally different culture there and just doing it constantly for about, I can't recall if it was a month. So we had to cram things so I don't go back and forth a lot.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (16:20.8)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (16:22.03)
Stop looking back and I wonder, would I do that in my 40s? Probably not.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (16:28.916)
Yeah. No, I think you do have a different kind of energy in your 20s and your 30s as well. think, you know, I always look back on those times and it's actually a blur because you can't believe that you fit in all the things. You know, for me, if I've got one or two things in my diary on the day, that's my day. Do you know what I mean? Those are the things. And yet I would have, you know, about three things in the morning, something else at lunchtime, three or four things in afternoon, plus kids, plus all the other running around that you do. And that was perfectly normal.

Reem Kubba (16:33.485)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (16:54.732)
Perfectly normal. I didn't bat an eyelid. Now I think I'd keel if I saw my diary from 20 years ago. My God, how do we do all those things? But obviously, you say that you were doing all of this moving around, but of course, you'd already made this big move as a young teen anyway. So I guess there was that acceptance that it's probably gonna be okay. Did you feel that?

Reem Kubba (16:56.738)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (17:01.096)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (17:21.186)
think so. didn't have that self-awareness to be honest, but I know my husband who I've met in New Zealand, we decided to go to the UAE and just try to get a job there and just move. He wanted to be, his parents used to live there at the time and he wanted to be closer to his parents. They were a bit older than my parents and he wanted to be there for them. So was like, yep, sure.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:25.164)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:37.067)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (17:49.356)
Let's do it. I didn't even think about it. was like, it's fine. My parents were saying, are you crazy? Like, do even have a plan? you, you you've lived, you grew up in New Zealand, you have us as a family. I was like, no, I'll be fine. I'll visit you guys. So I was more risky, more of a risk taker, but I think probably you're right. Probably I had some way in my subconscious that I was, you know, I've done this before and it was fine. I survived nothing.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (17:51.18)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:03.336)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:15.22)
Yeah.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. There isn't that alarm bell kind of going, this is unsafe, this is unsafe, because obviously, you know, you've done this, it's been fine. I think it's like anything, it's like how you build confidence or how you confidence with something, anything, isn't it really is that kind of, you know, you've done it, fine, you didn't die, you can do it again. It's that, you know, it's that box is checked in a sense, yeah.

Reem Kubba (18:18.584)
Tragic happened. So.

Reem Kubba (18:34.134)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's funny how you mentioned it because I've never actually thought about it this way. Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:40.638)
Yeah, yeah, no, it's just yeah. So obviously, you know, you've you've lived in six countries you say you've lived in.

Reem Kubba (18:49.918)
Yeah, six countries.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (18:52.428)
How was, gosh, that's, I mean, that's, you know, that's a lot. even to only be in your 40s, essentially, I've lived in six countries is quite a lot. there lots of, were there great cultural shifts between all of them?

Reem Kubba (19:06.838)
Not really. probably, to be honest, because when I tell people, a lot of these countries were in the Middle East. So a lot of people think the whole Middle East looks the same, but really when you shift, so my first moves was from Iraq. So I was living in Baghdad, which is the capital. We moved to Jordan and we were planning just to live there permanently. And there were like,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:15.276)
Mm.

Reem Kubba (19:34.196)
I honestly found a lot of cultural differences as well. And also the landscapes look different. The language is, the dialect is a little bit different. I had to learn a few words here and there. They speak Arabic, but it's a different dialect as well. So it's funny that you mentioned that earlier. Like if you go a few kilometers away, you'll find a little bit of a different culture somewhere else. Yeah. and,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (19:57.484)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (20:00.916)
That was probably around the age of 12, but that didn't go through. And then accidentally we applied to migrate to New Zealand. And that was the biggest culture shock. And then from New Zealand to the UAE, that was a real culture shock for me as well. To be honest, probably every country was a culture shock. From the UAE, we went to Saudi, which was even a bigger culture shock for me. And at that time, Saudi, that was

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:14.069)
Yes. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:19.368)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:28.512)
Bye.

Reem Kubba (20:30.35)
between 2000 and just trying to remember, I 2008 to I stayed there about eight years. We were planning to stay a couple of years. We ended up staying eight years. Yeah, so I feel like by that time and then going to the different countries is my last destination was Australia, which is birth.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:45.782)
we're okay.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (20:56.692)
Yeah, speaking live from, yeah.

Reem Kubba (21:00.366)
Yeah, speaking live from. I'm not sure if that's the actual last destination. We never know. But I've taken a piece of every culture and I feel I'm a mix of every culture, every city I've lived in. So me now is a combination of the different countries I've been in and the different people I've met. And it's just different. It makes me look at the world differently.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:06.229)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:17.225)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:30.038)
I bet it does. Yeah, that's so fascinating. So if we look at Reno in your 30s, so of course, you know, you're probably on your moves around the world. Obviously, you've got, is it two young children who said you've got?

Reem Kubba (21:45.39)
Uh, no. So now that the young children now are two adults and I have, uh, one younger one who is nine years old. So my, my son is 23. My daughter is 22 and we have a big gap. And then we had the third one who's nine now a daughter as well. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (21:49.738)
yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:02.06)
okay. so, that's lovely. So, as you're, are you still, I mean, you've done your, you did your degree. Did you, did you go into, only you went into, didn't go into engineering. Obviously that was the original plan. And then you went into this world of business. So where, where are you in your career at this point?

Reem Kubba (22:26.018)
when I did my degree or.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:27.806)
No, sorry, into your thirties. So obviously you've got these, you've got your older children.

Reem Kubba (22:30.762)
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So into my thirties, the earlier year in my thirties, I was living in Saudi and at that time I was accompanying my husband on his sponsorship. So legally I wasn't allowed to work in any corporate or any company. It's the only job that I'm allowed to work in at the time was teaching. So I decided to apply for a school. And because of my

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (22:54.89)
Right.

Reem Kubba (23:00.546)
You know, I'm bilingual, speak Arabic, speak English. So it was appealing for schools to apply this. So I've actually applied, I was lucky enough to work in a school with an amazing environment. And that was a Saudi school. So all of them were Saudi national. I really wanted to integrate into the Saudi culture. Cause when you lived in, when I lived in Saudi back then, you usually live in a compound. So that compound is your little bubble.

and you have all peoples from different nationalities living there, all expatriates. I didn't have an opportunity to meet local people because I wasn't working. And this is where I was like, want to meet the local community. I want to integrate into the local community. And that was my gateway into it. Plus I was bored at home. I wanted to do something. So I applied there. was a primary school teacher at the time teaching different subjects.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (23:45.567)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (23:54.658)
But then I saw an opportunity in the high school and I said, listen, I've got a business degree. Can I set up your business department there? And you could add it as a subject for high school students to teach them different business aspects, et cetera. And they said, yep, sure. We'll give it to you and we see how it goes. So I was lucky enough to establish that business department as well and then move on to a different...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:14.134)
Yeah.

Wow.

Reem Kubba (24:21.876)
section of them. I was still doing primary, but most of my classes focused on teaching high school girls. So the high school was girls only. And it was a really amazing experience there. So this is where I was at in my work world. And I felt like I was aligning, doing business. And I was studying at the time as well, finishing up my degree and then doing

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:29.355)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (24:51.308)
the teaching the business side of things and establishing that. that gave me a lot of experience. At that time, I remember I was doing a business class and we had a topic that's entrepreneurship. So I've asked the girls to pick an entrepreneur that inspires them and then just research about them and see, and give, there was a project that they had to present. And at that time, after that we finished

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (24:54.101)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (25:18.102)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (25:20.982)
that project, one of the girls asked me, what do you want to do? is this, would you see yourself teaching the whole time? And I just spontaneously said, no, I want to have my own business one day. I don't know what it is, but this is it. But at that time, I really felt it in my bones. Like it was like a declaration saying, I am going to have my own business after being inspired by hearing everybody and the girls and you know, they picked up on underrated entrepreneurs, like local.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (25:37.716)
Yes. Yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (25:44.325)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (25:50.442)
ladies who established like a fashion brand that became international. And I was like, I want to do this. Like, I don't know how or what. And at that time, I felt pregnant with my daughter, my third child. And I went to my husband and I said, I want to go back to New Zealand. I really want to go back to New Zealand. Number one, I want to be closer to my family. And number two, I think it's time for us to establish our own business.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (25:54.165)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:00.166)
No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:05.226)
Mm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:15.404)
Hmm.

Reem Kubba (26:20.076)
or at least I want to do my own business. At that time, everybody called us crazy as well because we had like my job was very successful. His job was very successful. We really loved living there, but we made a wild decision to leave and go again into, know, into the unknown. We didn't have a plan. If we didn't have like a looking back now, I don't think we had a plan.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:22.134)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (26:48.108)
Well, this is what's so interesting listening to this is that for the most part, a lot of this has been organic. Do you know what mean? There hasn't been that much of a plan as such through any of it other than a kind of let's just follow the steps ahead. Do know what mean? It's almost like this whole thing. I'm sure there was, you know, some.

Reem Kubba (26:49.806)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (27:05.942)
plan and structure behind it. But for you, the whole kind of thing feels fairly organic and so much so, you know, you couldn't work so you picked up the teaching. And that's such a, such a creatively rich environment to be in when you've got these young girls and they're so, you know, and this kind of looking into.

entrepreneurship, but not on a grand scale, even looking at it, you know, that's, that's a real motivator as well. So I love the fact that you kind of made this declaration and it kind of, you know, jarred something in your soul and, know, but, but I love this. Yeah, for sure.

Reem Kubba (27:32.173)
Man.

Yeah, manifested later on. Yeah, manifested later on. It wasn't an easy journey because, and you're right. There's a, I feel like in my own life, and I can probably just speak about myself here is, there's a lot of, it's probably not decisions more of declarations. I, I don't know what triggered the move because if you look at it on paper as well, leaving

an amazing corporate job and it's tax free by the way, just yeah. there's tax free, you know, schools, paid for our children's schools, like 50 % of the schools, they covered our rent, they covered international tickets once a year. We were traveling around as well multiple times a year. So it's sort of like the perfect life. But at that stage, there was a calling, there was something.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (28:06.676)
Nice.

Reem Kubba (28:31.084)
I don't know what it was. I didn't have clarity into what it was, but I felt like we needed to carry that calling and go with it, find it, what it is. I was lucky enough that my husband was supportive as well. He's like, okay, let's do it. If this is what you feel like we need to do, and I feel like there was a little bit of pregnancy hormones involved in that decision making. If I wasn't pregnant, I don't know if I'll take that step.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (28:54.252)
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Reem Kubba (29:00.942)
And yeah, we made the decision. didn't work out in New Zealand. Long story short, we ended up in Perth and Perth. We didn't perk Perth. Perth picked us really. it's, yeah. And here we are today. We're running a digital marketing agency as well as having another business. So I feel like that vision got manifested and it's

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (29:12.682)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (29:29.141)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (29:29.839)
I'm loving every part of it at the moment. But if you've told me at that time when I made the declaration, I would have said, way, that's not going to happen.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (29:32.724)
Yeah, I love that.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (29:38.508)
Well, I guess it's the kind of like, it's always like a statement that comes from a part of you that you haven't quite, you know, you're not quite there yet, but there's a part of you that's kind of go, oh, hang on, I've got something to say here. We're going to have a business and you catch up later on.

Reem Kubba (29:48.641)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (29:52.726)
Yeah, I've listened to something, I can't remember who it was, but it talks about you live in multiple timelines and then your future self is somewhere probably giving you a calling. And probably that was my future self saying, go for it, make the job. I don't know.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:05.676)
Yes, yes, yeah, yeah. I love it. It's like, sure, sitting there, that young girl has asked you what you want to do, what you want to be, and you're kind of thinking about it, and you're higher self, or there's a different timeline, and you come in and kind of goes, oh, yes, no, we've got this, she's going to be starting a business.

Reem Kubba (30:22.306)
Yeah, yeah. Probably.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (30:28.17)
this. When you say that Perth chose you, what do mean by that?

Reem Kubba (30:33.942)
Okay. So, when we moved to New Zealand, we moved to my parents' house until we get ourselves sorted. And, we, what we did is we started our business, which is in digital marketing at the time it was the popular thing was developing mobile apps. So trying to, to land my first customer and we were

And and hubby was looking at other businesses like what other businesses can we do to that generates money because we're a family of three, you know, got three children, a family of five. And, you know, soon we need to move out of my parents house. So as like we were probably at our lowest points, you know, we were spending up our savings. We don't have something that's income generating. We don't know where that what the future looks like.

And then suddenly we receive an email from a colleague of my husband's. He's only probably met him once. They used to work in telecommunications in the Middle East, different countries. So that colleague used to work in Iraq and, and Habib was working in telecommunications in Saudi. And he said, listen, I'm in Perth. I'm looking at buying a business, you know, an IT business, and I would like to partner up with you.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (31:56.352)
Bye.

Reem Kubba (31:56.386)
Are you willing? Are you open for that? And was going, and we were looking at each other and we were going, what? No way. Like, why would I move to Perth? This was our final destination. Where's Perth? People move to Sydney, move to Melbourne. Like, if I was gonna do the jump, I was gonna go to Melbourne. I've got a couple of family members there. This is the reasonable thing. What are you talking about? Like, Perth.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:05.952)
You put, the atlas comes out again. Like, where's Perth?

For sure, Melbourne, Sydney, For sure.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:22.996)
Yeah, Perth is the most remote city in the world. Who goes to Perth?

Reem Kubba (32:24.494)
And then at that time we were looking at YouTube video like where's Perth? What does it look like? Because honestly I imagined, you know, the cliche of it's just a little desert out there. And there weren't much content about Perth at the time. So it was very hard to tell what Perth looks like. So I said, listen, let's be open. Let's travel there. Let's organize a trip.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:37.642)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:42.592)
Bye.

Reem Kubba (32:50.456)
have a look at the business, have a look at the city and then decide. So we ended up going for a week. We stayed in Hay Street and it was just my husband and my little one. So the other two were at school. We went there for a week, checked out things. I ended up coincidentally meeting a friend from primary school. So she saw that I was going to Perth on social media and she said, I'm in Perth. You know, let's catch up. I'll do a city tour for you.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (32:53.503)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:17.674)
Yeah, amazing.

Reem Kubba (33:21.454)
And the decision was no, not to go ahead. So surprisingly we said, no, we're not going ahead. It just doesn't feel right. And then we left it there for about a month to still, you know, still struggling on the other end. We received another email from my husband's colleague saying, are you still interested? The opera is still open. Have you done anything in New Zealand that, you know, you don't want to leave? And we're like, no, we haven't. Okay, maybe we should go. You know, that's that.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:24.844)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:34.08)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (33:50.208)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (33:51.404)
The door is opening up on the other side. aren't many opportunities and I can still do the digital marketing part of stuff. You know, I can do it from anywhere and it's, it wasn't very well established there. So I might as well just move the city and then go. So we made, a leap, jumped Perth. Again, if you ask any of our relatives, family or friends, they were saying you're crazy at the time.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:00.852)
Yeah, yeah.

Reem Kubba (34:20.278)
I think that there's a theme here. Until now, people tell me, why did you move to Perth? I'm like, Perth chose us. Honestly, it was that email and we still have that email. We bought the business, which now we're best friends with that family. Yeah, things started getting along. I started investing my time and energy into marketing that business.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:20.3)
There is a theme.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (34:31.946)
Yeah

Why?

Reem Kubba (34:50.378)
as well as doing the marketing side of things for my digital marketing agency. And it just grew over time. back then we didn't see that was the right thing. Honestly, the first six months were scary. It was super, super scary. But having said that, the lighter thing to look at, I rented my house over the internet at the time. I bought all the furniture over

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (35:06.016)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (35:20.342)
over the internet, I knew exactly what to buy because I've had that experience from moving houses, changing, yeah, I knew exactly what I needed to buy. I was very efficient into moving. It took us no time. The furniture was there by the time, rented an Airbnb for a week just to set up the house, you know, make sure that we've got all the furniture that we needed at the time. And yeah, within that week, we ready, moved into the house, fully furnished. And yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (35:21.74)
Yes, yeah absolutely this is not your first rodeo.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (35:48.235)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (35:50.168)
got those kids enrolled in school. it was, yeah, it was normal life from there. As normal as it gets in my world.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (35:56.714)
Yeah.

It's always interesting because obviously I've had quite a number of these conversations and there's always that line where everybody thinks we're crazy and I think it's so interesting for me that you know people that have done anything that is kind of outside of the very sort of straight and narrow norm.

everybody considers it to be crazy. I think that line has come up in almost every conversation that I've had throughout this podcast, where everybody's going to done something and kind of go, and then I just flipped the switch and went off somewhere else and everybody thought I was crazy. But for you, and I'm not saying that craziness is the thread, but has there been a thread that has run through all of this, like all these versions of you from, you know, from that sort of

Probably even like from the little girl that was in Iraq all the way through to the woman that you are today.

Reem Kubba (36:52.28)
has there be an F thread?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (36:53.688)
A thread, yeah, any threads that have kind of like anything that you see, like a strength or a struggle or something that has kind of woven its way through your life, some sort of like an inner determination or something.

Reem Kubba (37:09.174)
honestly, it's, and that's a famous line that probably my husband says a lot is, you know, what has carried us through all these years? Sometimes I were like today, I would worry about one thing. Like, how are we going to do this? You know, how, there's a problem that comes in our way. like, how are we going to handle this? So there's something that he usually says. It's like, how have we been carried this whole time?

since we were born until today. Do you think it's all us? It's all us carrying ourselves? No, there is a divine power. I believe in God. So I feel like God is carrying us and taking care of us. He put us on this earth because He doesn't want to torture us. So He's looking out for us all the time. And we make these decisions and declarations and then we've got the support. So always

He always reminds me that we have the support that's been carried us all these years with all these struggles, with all these moves, then we shouldn't worry what tomorrow brings. And I think that's the foundation of it every time. And I tend to forget these things. So I just sit down with myself and say, just trust the process, know? Trust the process. And we don't know because sometimes I get a bit control-itive, I feel like.


Reem Kubba (38:38.028)
Somewhere in my personality, I like to control things and see things and sometimes things are not very visual and I can't see it from a 360 perspective. So I need to take a breath and stop and say, well, I don't know how everything, you know, if I planned for my life, it would definitely not look like this, you know.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (38:47.084)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:01.406)
Yeah, yeah.

Reem Kubba (39:02.464)
It would definitely not look as good as it is right now because I honestly feel that gratitude that it's the best outcome that could have happened. it's, yeah, and where tomorrow is going to take me, I don't know. And it doesn't matter. I'm open to it. think that openness, openness, having that openness.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:10.709)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (39:17.312)
Yeah. Yeah. Do you know, I would say, you know, even from this conversation with you, I would say the word open has come up so many times that I think that is a real thread for all of this, because I mean, you are open to the idea of change or open to the idea of something new. You're open of not open to not knowing. You're open to being flexible. And I think that sense of openness kind of

Yeah, it's so transformative in the sense that like, you know, all these things that have happened to you have come to you from not from a place of control, but I've actually just been open to kind of like, let's just say, you know, and that does require such a level of trust, because you know, there's so many things that you know, God, I mean, I can't think of the amount of times that I've had to kind of go just trust the process, just trust, just trust that this is going to work out or whatever it is, you know, I think there has to be, we have to hand part of that over.

Reem Kubba (40:11.042)
Yeah. Cause a lot of that, you know, when you, when you have the confidence, I feel it's because I've done something, I've tried it and I know what the outcome is. This is where confidence comes from. So if I've tried it, I've seen the outcome, I can visualize it. I'm confident to go in and do that thing. But when you haven't done something before and you haven't experienced it and you don't know what the outcome is,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:23.555)
Yes, yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:33.664)
Mm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:39.212)
Hmm.

Reem Kubba (40:40.736)
you've got to have that trust. So there isn't confidence anymore. It's not confident. I don't call it confidence anymore. It's more of just trusting and going into it and be willing to fail. that's a big thing for me is being okay with failing because in my culture and my upbringing and being an overachiever as a kid as well, it was very hard for me to fail and it's still probably hard for me to fail right now. But

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:42.611)
Yeah. No. No. No.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (40:57.192)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:03.253)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:08.372)
Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (41:10.574)
It's okay. Like nothing's going to happen. As long as I know how to dust myself off and get up again, that's the real win. It's not because us being humans, we're not going to win all the time. Realistically.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (41:23.74)
No, no, that's true. And I also think, you know, this, this sense of trust and whether that's in like a higher, higher something, those are always that trust in yourself as well. And again, it's that trust that you've been through this, the trust that you've got this, you know, you're this, this kind of, I mean, self confidence is self trust, essentially. So it's that trust that you will work it out.

There's something that you've, you've gone through before that this is going to work out, you know, you will be able to work it out. So I think there's also that level that kind of threads through as well. Really. Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (41:59.726)
Absolutely, absolutely.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (42:02.732)
No, it's wonderful. So if we talk about then an unraveling and when I think about unraveling, this is kind of when the wheels come off. So for me personally, my own unraveling and how I look at this was that I've had a career that I've been in for over 30 years and I've always absolutely loved all the things that I've done, all the things that I do around it. I was trained as a hairdresser, I wanted to be a makeup artist. I then became a makeup artist sort of 15 years into my career.

tie in the two together, had businesses as a bridal hair and makeup artist and as an educator and business mentor and all these things. Loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it until like a switch going off. I didn't. And then I didn't really know what to do with that not loving it anymore. whole kind of, my, my kind of identity started to crumble. remember through, it was probably through COVID when I asked myself for the first time, who am I without this job?

And I didn't know the answer to that. didn't know who I was without my...

my job, my role, my identity, all of these things. So all of this started to fall apart. So that for me became the kind of like the pivot point of my own unraveling. And then obviously I've spent the last five years figuring out who that was, who I was underneath the horse. So there was a real, and unraveling is never a pretty process. It's never one of these kinds of things where you kind of go, oh, that's an interesting thing about myself. know, oh, failure is interesting, isn't it? You know, all these lessons, you know, that obviously they are great lessons, but you don't realize that at the time. So.

So what has there been any kind of unraveling for you and how has that played out?

Reem Kubba (43:43.726)
I would probably say, look at it at the, looking at my life timeline, the lowest point in my life was probably around the age of 33, 34. And this is when we first moved to Perth and I was trying to establish the business and then everything fell apart. Anything that could go wrong went wrong. And I just...

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (43:50.348)
Hmm.

Reem Kubba (44:11.336)
wasn't interested in anything. I think I went into probably deep depression and I couldn't identify, I would probably be similar to you. I've always been identified as a teacher or as a marketer or as XYZ or as an overachiever or all these titles, but none of them meant anything to me at the time. I was trying to find my feet of who I am. What's my identity?

As well as trying to earn a living and raise a little one and two teenagers that probably didn't like me so much at the time. it was very, very hard at the time because when you're trying to find out who you really truly are and what are you set out to do and what do you want to be like internally, a lot of these titles were external.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (44:49.869)
That's their job.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:08.428)
Yes.

Reem Kubba (45:08.704)
I was doing multiple things as well. ran women's networking groups that got sold out and I used to run them every six weeks. I loved them, but on the inside, like the fulfillment, I didn't want anything to come from an external fulfillment. They were all external things. I think when you go into business, I think I wouldn't have discovered this unless I'm going to business because you become raw.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:22.603)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (45:34.998)
When I was in a job, I had a job description. If I ticked all of these things, then I'm a good employee. I'm good. I get the appraisal. I get the credit, whatever it is. But when you're in your own business, you have to really lead yourself. So it's so much harder leading yourself than it is leading other people or leading yourself in a job.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:41.546)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (45:55.392)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (46:04.814)
There's a little box that you're in because leading yourself is very, you really have to know yourself and you really have to walk through yourself at different levels. And that was a breaking point for me because I didn't know who Reem was. I was a young mother, so I had my first child when I was 19, 20. So I've always identified as a mom.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:04.886)
Yeah.

for sure.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:17.036)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:23.53)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:31.083)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (46:34.338)
You know, always, but who am I outside of all these titles outside of the mom, the daughter, the wife, you know, the, the whatever job title that I had. and I was like, that's it. You know, that, that is, I had a moment where I said, that's it. Enough is enough. I need to do something about it. And I didn't know what I needed to do. Like I didn't know. And.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:36.652)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (46:55.5)
Mm. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (47:02.7)
At that time I went to my GP and she referred me to a psychologist. A random psychologist that was out of my area, which I found around him. She's like, you should talk to this person. So I went and I sat down on the first session with my psychologist and she said, you know, why are you here? You looked so far away. It's like a 35, 14 minute drive. How come you chose me? And I'm like, I don't know. My GP referred me to you. She's like, I can't even remember your GP's name. So she doesn't.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:24.8)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:29.238)
Ha

Reem Kubba (47:32.59)
She hasn't referred to me before. I'm wondering why you're here. And I was like, you know what? I'm ready to do anything that needs to be done. And you you tell me what I need to do and I'll do it because I'm not happy. I just want to, you know, I want to feel peace. I want to feel inner peace. I want to feel happy. I have no problem doing all the things, but I wanted to do it while having inner peace and happiness as well.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:35.421)
Sharon Wilkes-Burt (47:58.688)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (47:59.798)
and self-satisfaction and not getting that satisfaction and that from somebody who praised my event or somebody who was happy about something I'd done. And it was, we had a couple, you know, we had that first session and it was a click for her when I talked to her, she's like, I think she referred you to me because I specialize in something called EMDR. And I said, I don't know if you've heard of EMDR or not. And I said, what's EMDR?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (48:05.194)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (48:24.972)
Yes, yeah, yeah.

Reem Kubba (48:29.292)
And she's like, it's a technique that we use for trauma, depression, whatever, different types of things. And I think, I'll let you read about it and you come back to me in the next session and say if you wanted to go ahead and do it. I read about it and I was like, originally used for trauma for soldiers going into war, coming back home, they couldn't function and then they get them and it stands for.

eye movement, think, desensitization and processing. So it's a little exercise you do. I was like, I'm open. Let's do it. Let's try it. It felt a little bit of woo to me, to be honest. And I'm like, what are we doing here? Can you just explain? And she said, most people do have some sort of trauma in their life or something that they've gone through. And then what happens with

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:02.954)
Right.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:06.644)
Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:12.853)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:19.82)
Hmm.

Reem Kubba (49:26.29)
These events is they sit in your brain, but they sit in the wrong place in your brain. So what we're going to do is put that side of the trauma and shift it to a different place where it should belong in a box, in its own box. So in the future, when you remember that event, we're not going to delete it. You can't delete events that you remember. So what's going to happen is you remember it, but you remember it like, and you tell the story like,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:31.788)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:42.955)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:47.794)
No, no, no, no. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (49:54.336)
you've watched a movie and you're telling me a story about a movie you watched in the cinema. I'm like, you can do that? That's cool. Let's try it. So we've tried it. I can't remember if it was five or six sessions and it was life changing for me, life changing. And it's, I couldn't believe it. And we used to joke about like, I would go home and hubby would say, what did you do? And I was like, this is what we've done. And he's like, really? we, I don't know if it's gonna work, but I'm

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (49:58.388)
Yeah.

you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:07.818)
Wow. Wow, I love that.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:20.812)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm open to it,

Reem Kubba (50:23.468)
You know, I'm trying it, I'm open to it. And apparently with that stage, you go through like a little bit of a downhill and then you go up and you improve. And this is exactly what I experienced. And looking back now and I say, you know, how did I get picked into seeing this specific psychologist? Cause when I read about it at the time when I did EMDR, there weren't a lot of psychologists around Perth doing that. It's a very specialized thing.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:49.908)
Nah

Yeah.

Reem Kubba (50:53.518)
And I would tell people, tell my friends, I would get excited. I'm like, everybody should do this. You know, I'm not giving medical advice here, but at least try it out. Because it's so cool. You don't have to sit there and talk about your trauma for like sessions and hours because that brings you all the emotional, you know, the baggage. And it's just so much easier. And people didn't know what I was talking about.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (50:58.42)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:09.919)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (51:19.104)
And I'm so, I've been so lucky that I've been exposed to this because that made the shift that afterwards, because prior to this, I tried to get into coaching, you know, go get a life coach or go get, but I couldn't, I was stuck. You know, I could, I wasn't coachable at that time. I was really down that I really wasn't coachable. No one could coach me. wouldn't listen to the outside world because I wanted to shut it all off. It was too much for me. So I think.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:32.82)
Yeah, yeah, yes.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:42.516)
Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (51:44.942)
from there and then going into the self-development world and it was so much easier because I had like heavy stuff getting cleaned. Yeah, so I think that the unraveling happened around probably 33, 34 years old where I wasn't sure what I was doing. I wanted to do the business, I wasn't in a mental state to do it.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (51:54.046)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (52:09.116)
No. And also, mean, like, God, mean, as any, you know, self-employed or, you know, entrepreneur will tell you, like, you know, self-employment is probably the biggest, you know, personal development journey you will ever, ever go on. Because as you said before, you know, you have to kind of uncover these layers of yourself and you have to keep going deeper and deeper and, know, to understand parts of yourself because you're going to be faced with all of it as a, you know, as a business owner.

Reem Kubba (52:21.774)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (52:39.084)
So it's kind of brutal. And there was something, oh God, my brain's just gone blank. There was something you were saying, hang on, just having a lovely brain fog moment here. I will of course edit this bit out. Hang on, there was something you were saying before. Oh my gosh, I have written this down. Hang on. What were you saying about the...

Reem Kubba (52:52.194)
Hahaha

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (53:06.625)
my God, my brain has totally just, this is, need to change my patch.

Reem Kubba (53:10.4)
Is it? I go through this multiple times a day. I'm just trying to remember what I said now. Yeah, everything was really low around the age, probably 33, 34, and then decided to go and see a psychologist, the DMDR. Anything related to that?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (53:16.78)
I didn't get you.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (53:28.756)
Yeah, yeah, this is it.

Yes, it absolutely was. Sorry, had a post-old brain blank moment there. Yes, I mean, actually, it's quite funny as well. This had the serendipity of this moment as well. This kind of, you know, even when you said that you didn't know why you'd been referred to, I kind of had this goosebump moment of kind of like, oh my gosh, this was so, this was so meant to be. And as you say, this was so kind of left a field of anything that you were aware of at the time. But to be able to be exposed to that

Reem Kubba (53:45.238)
Thank

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (54:01.676)
And I guess that would have been quite woo, quite kind of like off the, as you say, so few people were doing it. So, but I mean, if you've ever read that book, The Body Holds the Score, I think it's very much about that, isn't it? Where we have these kind of like, these kind of stuck parts of us. And if you're unable to kind of like move that, as you say, know, particularly when you've been exposed to so much external praise.

forever, you know, so anybody telling you, anybody on the outside, coaches or anybody telling you things, it's again, it's just all external, but unless you've kind of made this way to clear all this stuff out, then nothing's going to start fulfilling or working on the inside. Is that kind of how it felt?

Reem Kubba (54:45.814)
Absolutely. And when you mentioned about the weight, the exact feeling Sharon that I felt every day, I was carrying bags of kilos and kilos of things. I, and physically I felt like I had shackles around my ankles and I was carrying that weight everywhere. I was organizing events and I was carrying that weight, was doing school things and I was carrying that weight, know, doing this kids sports and I was carrying that weight.

And it was just tiring until I said, you know, it's how do I get that weight off? Like, I ever do? And it keeps accumulating. And with my first session, when my psychologist suggested that we do the EMDR and things like that, and you know, I had a little bit of a pause at that time. You know, I was open personality, but I wasn't that open, you know, looking back at it now. And she said, Reem, we can do this now.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:21.652)
Yeah.

Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:38.443)
Yeah

Reem Kubba (55:46.103)
Okay. And get it over and done with in your thirties. Or you'll come back to me in your forties or in your fifties. And she said, most people would probably come to me in their sixties. So it's up to you. It's your decision. Cause they, you either going to do it now. And, I've always fascinated about that idea in my twenties. would go and see a psychologist, you know, I wanted to.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:47.116)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (55:58.144)
Wow, okay. Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:11.114)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (56:13.012)
explore this and I've always had it at the back of my mind, but my mind would say, no, don't do it. It's a taboo thing. I didn't want to announce it. I wouldn't feel comfortable saying it to my friends or my colleagues. Am I crazy? And at that time, I wished now if I would go back in time, probably do it as early as possible. As an adult, probably in my early 20s.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:22.668)
Mmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (56:39.264)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Reem Kubba (56:42.56)
it would really shape the my life is. back to your question, which was, I hope I didn't lose the track of your question, but because you mentioned the word weight, I don't feel that weight anymore. I would feel a little bit of the daily weight, but now, and the thing is,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (57:04.894)
No.

Reem Kubba (57:10.67)
Over the time, it didn't stop there. I learned techniques. There's something that she used to always say to me is like, I would go to her and say, I'm so stressed out. I've got this, I've got that, I've got this. She's like, and do you have something to deal with stress? What are you doing to deal with that stress? And I go, nothing.

You know, I've got techniques to, you know, clean my house. I've got techniques to raise my children. I've got techniques to do a shopping list and plan for a holiday, but how to deal with stress? Am I supposed to know how to deal with stress? I didn't know. So just learning these things, you know, how to deal with and have the capacity. think the capacity, we all hold some sort of capacity. So my capacity in my 20s probably was this much.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (57:33.686)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. No.

Reem Kubba (58:02.126)
30 is probably expanded a little bit. And over time, I feel like my capacity should grow. This is my own personal belief that I need to grow the capacity of how much I can hold. Because how much I can hold relates to how I can process everything, how I can process the unknown, how I can process when problems happen, how can I process when good things happen.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:04.459)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:09.205)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:15.904)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (58:28.59)
Because on the other hand, sometimes I can't handle too much good things at the same time because it was too many bad things.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:32.906)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:41.332)
It's, it's sorry.

Reem Kubba (58:41.622)
So if, yeah, no, yeah, I was just gonna say it's over time. feel like my capacity has grown.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (58:49.118)
Hmm. Yeah, it's interesting because when you talk about that

expansion and it probably is exactly as you say, you know, it does, it does grow. Your capacity does grow. Obviously there's more experiences come into your life as you know, as the years pass by. And so you do have this capacity to kind of hold more and more, but there's an interesting thing happens. And I found this particularly through my fifties. And when I talk about other women, when I talk to other women, you know, they're saying the same thing and we just get a little bit more, your capacity kind of gets to like a kind of breaking point. And then you just start to get a little bit more.

discerning about what it is you're going to hold, you know, and you begin to kind of let go of stuff that actually doesn't really matter. So, and there's this real sense when you, obviously for women that I've spoken to, I know this definitely of herself, you just give less of a, you know, and so there's, and so you do, you know, so you do become more discerning about what it is you're holding, which actually in that in itself is quite freeing, you know, that's quite, that's...

Reem Kubba (59:42.412)
Yep.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (59:53.354)
that gives you a certain amount of lightness that you can just let go of all this other stuff. And again, when you were talking about, you know, I mean, we discussed mental health and we talk about therapy and all these things now in a way that was never discussed even 10 years ago, you know, these things were still relatively taboo.

But yeah, think therapy is people and all sorts of different types of therapies, whatever they might be, it would be, I'm glad that it's a conversation. I'm glad that we're kind of talking about these things and people aren't holding, you know, they've been given these tools essentially to be able to kind of, you know, to be able to grow and not have to deal with stress and, you know, get bogged down with all of these things. yeah, so I think it's really interesting what you're saying that, you know, if you you define these, I mean, you were only in your 30s, essentially,

you found these, which is incredible because you say like that, you know, your psychologist said to you, people aren't finding this until their 60s. How much how how many decades have you gone through a breaking point before you actually get to this point where you realize that you didn't have to carry all of that stuff?

Reem Kubba (01:00:57.302)
Yeah. it's realizing it's an option, really. It's an option to carry that stuff. It's not compulsory. And I think women in our nature, we like to hold a lot. We like to give a lot as well without refueling ourselves. So I've also realized over the years, I'm really good at giving, but not so good at receiving. It's something I had to learn how to receive as well.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:01.002)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:21.833)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:01:26.766)
And allowing that, know, because we sort of say, no, no, no, I've got it handled. You know, I don't want to bother that person or I don't want to say I need help because I've got it. You know, it's true. I've got it. can do it physically, but mentally it's taking a strain on me. So I had to learn the skill of receiving because we, I feel like us as women, our natural state is to receive not

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:39.018)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:44.287)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:49.545)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:55.978)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:01:57.0)
not to give.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:01:58.156)
Yeah, for sure. It's so interesting that you say that. And you're absolutely right, because we're not taught how to receive, we give, we, and you know, it's naturally again, as mothers, you know, that's our kind of, you know, you're not, we're not receiving too much, not receiving sleep, not receiving any kind of, you know, much of the way of support. I mean, we do, but you know, it's like, but yeah, I mean, I do remember, I remember somebody saying to me, you know, because you'll say these, you know, it's like these affirmations that you can say, I'm open to receiving. But then

somebody would say something to you like, like, you that's a lovely dress you're wearing, god, this whole thing. So you can't even receive a compliment. So you're actually not open to receiving at all. And it's in those small gestures, those small ways that you show you're open to receiving. But you're right, we're not, we don't know how to, we're very, we're we're uncomfortable with it mostly, you know, much more happy to give because that's our kind of like, you know, that's our condition state, I guess.

Reem Kubba (01:02:56.332)
Yeah, yeah, so

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:02:57.43)
So when you talk about this being like, it's been our natural state being open to receive and what do you mean by that? Or what's your experience of that?

Reem Kubba (01:03:06.922)
My experience, if I look at every moment in my life where, you know, I've just, it's just being me. And a lot of the good things that came into my life were not because I chased them and I went after them. It was more of it was given to me somehow.

To go back to some of the examples like Perth, you know, how did I end up in Perth? I didn't run chasing after Perth. I didn't have a goal in my mind or a strategy or anything. It just, it was sort of like it was presented to us on a silver plate. This is how I see it. I know probably we did have a lot of financial struggles at the beginning and a lot of other struggles, but looking at it in hindsight, it was presented. We've received it.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:03:37.665)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:03:50.443)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:02.474)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:04:02.508)
You know, and we said, yes, thank you for that gift. I'll take it. getting matched with, you know, my psychologist, was definitely not an effort from me. would lie to say I was searching the internet, looking for the best one with the best reviews, you know, reading about her qualifications and experience. I didn't do any of this. It just came and landed on my lap. And yeah, and looking at clients as well, like the best clients came.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:05.578)
Yes. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:17.644)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:25.31)
Yeah, gift.

Reem Kubba (01:04:32.492)
by them just finding me somewhere. I don't know, I wasn't chasing them. I wasn't even looking for them and then they just came. So in my own little humble experience, I feel it's just so much easier to receive, but you need to be open to it. Because I know I've refused receiving many times, as simple as what you have mentioned, I relate to that thing you said about receiving a compliment. And you say, no, no, what's this?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:35.167)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:48.744)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:04:55.628)
Mmm.

Reem Kubba (01:05:01.452)
What I'm wearing is a really old thing I got in the 90s. But how about saying, yes, thank you. I've actually purchased it from this place and I love wearing it. So it's those little things because how you are in one thing is how you are in everything.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:05:03.572)
Yeah.

Yes, yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:05:17.72)
Absolutely. And it's that muscle, I guess, isn't it? It's just kind of building that muscle of kind of, you know, just being, just practicing that, you know, so catching yourself before you go the, no, this whole thing or whatever it is, whatever, you know, just catching yourself in that moment. And, and I guess as well, you know, when you, because obviously, you know, when you say that you reflect on all these experiences, you reflect on the move to Perth, you know, the psychologists and all these clients, I guess it's that kind of, accepting that those were gifts.

Reem Kubba (01:05:48.13)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:05:48.17)
you know, that those were kind of given to you. Those were things that you were able to accept. And I think that's such a, it's such a lovely, or to receive, that's such a lovely thing.

Reem Kubba (01:05:57.878)
Yeah, yeah. And it's just so much lighter. It's so much easier, so much lighter. But the not easy part at the beginning was training myself to say it's okay to receive. Because sometimes I was rejecting people. I was actually rejecting clients because I would say, no, I don't think I can do a good job here. So let me just say no. It's safer to say no. It's just safer to say no. People now come in with,

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:06:01.043)
Hmm, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:06:20.702)
Yes, yes.

Reem Kubba (01:06:27.138)
they've got some sort of a problem in their business and then they come to me for help. I'm more open. Probably I haven't figured it out 100%, but I'm willing to go in and try. And I'm very frank with my clients as well. Like, I don't know what this issue specifically is. It's sort of like going into a GP and they say, you know, we've got to figure out, we've got to rule out a few things and then decide what your diagnostic is and then give you a solution. So.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:06:43.061)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:06:51.284)
Yeah, yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:06:56.586)
being okay, being okay. And I tell them I might be wrong, know, being okay with being wrong. And what are the risks, you know, looking at the risks, what if this goes wrong? We actually have a backup plan. We actually have. So it makes you more prepared as well. look, you know, I'm receiving more opportunities. I've had something that come two weeks ago and I don't know where this person came from, you know?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:07:00.842)
Yeah, okay, we've been wrong. Yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:07:10.314)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:07:26.168)
But he said he's been watching me for a while now. And again, I made a declaration not ready to expose yet. So hopefully that will go through. As some sort of business declaration, live declaration. And then two weeks later, a person came in with an offer of some sort to be our client. And I just went, wow, like, where did you come from? know, I asked, I made a declaration there.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:07:28.224)
Bye.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:07:40.384)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:07:47.253)
Bye.

Your other timeline you came through at that moment and kind of go, hang on, just a little heads up.

Reem Kubba (01:07:56.174)
you.

Hang on. Yeah. and imagine me just going, I would never have found this client. To be honest, I would never ever in a million years, if I did the best marketing campaigns and, reached out to them or whatever I did, it was just very hard, but they found me somewhere. And apparently they've been watching me for a couple of years online. And they said, this is we we've been watching you and this is we want to collaborate on XYZ.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:08:15.221)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:08:22.431)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:08:28.716)
Are you open to it? I'm like, absolutely, I'm open to it. Wherever it takes us, if it goes through, if it doesn't go through, I'm open to it. Just having that conversation, know, lights up the room.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:08:31.572)
Yeah. God.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:08:40.382)
Yeah, yeah. I think that's that word open again, isn't it? It's just come up, think, when we talk about that thread, I think that has just threaded through your entire story and continues to kind of thread through to the point where you are today. So if we, so obviously you've...

you know, we've gone through your thread and you're unraveling. And so what advice, if you, if I was to put you into a little time machine and I was to take you back to any one of the earlier versions of you, is there something you would go back and tell a younger version of yourself?

Reem Kubba (01:09:18.7)
I would tell her, listen to you, listen to yourself, because I was shutting that voice for a really long time, especially in my 20s, early 30s. It's a whisper. It's not a shout. It's not loud. It's a very soft voice. Sometimes that voice, usually for me, it would come when I put my head on the pillow and that voice would come, say, if, what if, why don't we do this? I'd say, no, no, no, no way.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:09:31.506)
I yes.

Reem Kubba (01:09:47.38)
No way. Like, what's your strategy? know, what do you even have a plan? This is what I used to do. Where now it's like, yep, maybe, you know, we'll see. Or yes, let's do it. So, but I think unless you turn all the noise down, you can't hear these whispers. So for me was there was a lot of noise around me.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:09:50.508)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:09:58.133)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:10:07.148)
So true.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:10:11.274)
Hmm.

Reem Kubba (01:10:11.466)
And the noise is not gone at the moment, but I know how to silence it. I will know how to switch it off. Sort of like I found the switch, like, let me switch it off. It's, know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:10:18.034)
Yeah, that in itself is a gift. mean, that's hell of a tool, isn't it? To be able to switch off that noise and kind of, but I think so much of that, know, so much of the work I do as well, it's like, don't need, nobody needs to be fixed because everything you have is within you, you know, it's, it's finding that switch. It's just turning off all that noise to be able to kind of, you know, to be able to sort of tap into that, to that wisdom. I had a previous guest on my podcast had said, always catch God on the whisper.

Reem Kubba (01:10:41.294)
Thank

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:10:48.448)
And it's that idea that like, you know, it's just going to get louder and louder and in the end it's going to be a brick to the head. And you're going go, my God, what happened? It's because you weren't listening out for the whisper. So always catch God on the whisper. And I loved that.

Reem Kubba (01:10:48.844)
Yes.

Reem Kubba (01:10:59.788)
Yeah, yeah. But that whisper requires for me personally to sit down alone and just be with myself, you know, to, and that's an exercise I, you know, I try to do on a regular basis is just to switch off everything and go, okay, you know, what thoughts are coming out? You know, what's coming up? You know, what is going on?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:11:15.489)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:11:22.262)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:11:25.034)
Is there some dust that I need to dust off because it's not serving me? I don't want weight to accumulate like it did before. I don't want to go through that experience where I'm collecting, collecting, collecting. I just want to let go. So I go through these exercises. I try to do it regularly. It's a mind gym that I need to do.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:11:33.59)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:11:47.331)
mm-hmm.

Reem Kubba (01:11:50.25)
Realistically, it doesn't happen every day and it's okay. And just being okay with sometimes I've got to carry some stuff that I don't want to carry, but it's okay because I know how to put that weight off. You know, I've got the techniques, I've got the tools, I know how to do it. I just need to find the time when I'm ready and I'll do it rather than having all the confusion and then carrying everything and also analyzing my thoughts when I'm with myself.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:12:01.036)
Mmm.

Reem Kubba (01:12:17.93)
Is this my thought or is that an adopted thought from somebody else? Is it me? it my? Cause you said about, you know, internal knowing and internally, I feel like we've been programmed to, to work it out. You know, in the end we can work it out. we can get external help. I'm not against external help, but there's a lot of the answers that are internal that you can find for yourself when you're making decisions. And.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:12:21.215)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:12:32.502)
Mm. Mm.

No.

Hmm.

Reem Kubba (01:12:44.418)
Unless that external volume is down or off, you can't listen to yourself and your own wisdom. And it's straining it over time as well to recognize, yes, this is my own wisdom. No, this is something that's rubbish I need to get rid of. And it's had me look at things of, why am I doing things this way? Is it because of something cultural I took on? Questioning everything as well. Is that culture related?

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:13:10.816)
Yes.

Reem Kubba (01:13:14.53)
something I've learned somewhere in a country I was living in or is this something I've heard on TV or I've heard on, you know, I've been programmed through a movie or I've been programmed through a series, you know, what is it? Like, where did I come with that belief? So.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:13:17.322)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:13:28.18)
Yeah, and it's such a powerful thing to do, that moment of whose voice is that, who's telling me this thing, know, where does this come from? We don't always catch ourselves because we're so busy believing what it is that this thing is, you know? So what do you have a preferred practice or a preferred tool that you use the most or just, you know, is your preferred?

Reem Kubba (01:13:37.87)
you

Reem Kubba (01:13:52.876)
My preferred is, I like guided meditations. So I listen to a lot of guided meditations. I've done in the past couple of months, I've probably done them on a daily basis and sometimes twice a day in the morning and at night. Cause I feel in the morning it sets the tone and the theme of the day and at night sort of cleans up whatever you don't need to carry on to you during your sleep.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:14:19.711)
Yes.

Reem Kubba (01:14:21.644)
When I do that on a daily basis, it's just, feel so light. guided meditation, took me a few years to find, you know, what's the right guided meditation that sounds like me. It's more natural. I don't need to think about it because I tend to overanalyze and I want to study like, why are we saying this word? So it's something more that comes more naturally to me. And then after that, I like to

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:14:26.826)
Hmm.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:14:42.076)
Yes.

Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:14:51.502)
So that sets me for the day. So if I've done it in the morning, every decision I come through during the day or a problem that I come through the day, it's easier for me to listen to my own voice because I've been through that. I haven't gone to the stage where I do my own meditation, like just sit down with myself and I don't think I've been...

probably courageous enough to do that. I have done it probably once. And what that has brought is it took me, I think, three hours without, I did it without realizing, said, I need to do it. It was in the middle of the night. And then what happens when you do your own, well, when I did my own meditation, it was more of thinking about things. You what is the first thing that came to my mind? Usually it's a problem.

you know, or a person that, you know, bothered me, or I feel guilty about bothering another person. All that guilt shame comes to the surface when it's at nighttime, everybody's sleeping. Yeah, I think it was around two o'clock in the morning. And I went through it, that exercise, and I said, you know, that person, I'm sorry I did that to you. You know, I feel really bad. I'm sorry. I don't want to feel guilty.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:15:49.888)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, two o'clock in the morning, it's vitally important,

Reem Kubba (01:16:18.882)
So I hope my apology reaches to you. Sometimes there are ways that you do something wrong and you can apologize to the person. But some of the people I had to apologize to, either I couldn't bring myself to apologize to them because I haven't spoken to them in years because they were in a different timeline or because there's no way of reaching to them anymore because I don't have a connection with them.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:16:39.828)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:16:46.667)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:16:46.734)
So I sort of sent my apologies and released my guilt through that session and also received gratitude for the, but after that, after going all the negative things of feeling guilt, shame, et cetera, things started to pop off people, images of people that have, you know, I've got so much gratitude for, so I sent them gratitude. I said, you know, I am so great, as if I'm speaking and they are in front of me. This is what I imagined.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:16:52.33)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:17:13.269)
Yeah.

Reem Kubba (01:17:15.05)
That made a transformation because I'm not carrying that guilt as well. I do intend of doing that again. There are some things where I'm as you, as I became a business owner, realized, sometimes I wasn't a really good employee. You know, I wasn't because I was, I was looking at it from an employee perspective, not from a business owner's perspective. And I said to myself, you know, maybe I should have done things differently. Maybe.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:17:19.755)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:17:24.0)
Yeah

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:17:37.791)
Right, okay.

Reem Kubba (01:17:43.99)
I wasn't wrong. I was actually the wrong person. I wasn't doing the right things or the right behaviors. So that made me realize as I came into business, I started apologizing for these things. started sending out apologies and letting go of the guilt and the shame because now I've learned, I was aware because according to, I don't know what that little cone thing that they...

the map of consciousness, I think it's called, where they have the levels of energies. Now, it hasn't been measured scientifically or anything, but I feel there is a lot of connection to it. And at some stage, I realized that shame and guilt are the lowest frequencies that you can be in. So right now, any feeling that comes with shame or guilt, I try to get rid of as soon as possible because I don't want to carry that low.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:18:13.377)
Okay.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:18:18.784)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:18:27.784)
Mmm... Yeah...

Reem Kubba (01:18:40.202)
energy frequency with me, would draw that, you know, have gratitude and joy and peace. But holding both is very hard, know, holding guilt and shame and then holding gratitude and joy is very hard. So yeah, this is these are the practices, honestly, do I do them on a regular basis? I try my best. I do try my best. When I do them. Do I feel great? Absolutely. I do feel great. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:18:44.714)
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:19:01.621)
Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:19:05.612)
Yes, yeah. Yeah. I mean, my personal practices, and this goes back to the very, very start of the podcast, I was talking about journaling, but journaling is my practice. That's my thing. And I will do that most mornings. I usually take myself off to the beach. I've got my cacao or coffee or something. yeah, some days I write. I have nothing today to write.

Just just for the very practice of just getting my pen on the paper and usually from having nothing to write I'll then go and write out three pages or something because all of a sudden things will start to drop in but again, it's like meditation. It's just that practice, isn't it? It's just that kind of you know, just just holding that muscle the whole time and sometimes things come through that are actually quite profound and I had no idea that I was holding on to so so yeah, it's just I think it's really important to kind of be able to

have these tools or have something that just allows you to work through all of that stuff, you know, and find, you know, because I mean, there's been times when I've journaled and it's sometimes been really ranty, but you know, you'll try and finish it off with something that actually I'm grateful for. Cause as you say, there's no, you don't want to sit in that kind of low level energy. You want to find what's, what's something else. What's another level I can get to, you know, that's beyond that. So I think that's such a, it's such a great way to start your day apart from anything else.

Reem Kubba (01:20:28.354)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's so much harder to write. For me personally, I know I've got a limiting belief around writing. I know it's something I struggle to do. I wish I can write. I've done it a couple of times. It is liberating, but it's, it's difficult for me to write my emotions on a paper. I don't know why. Yeah.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:20:32.254)
you

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:20:49.488)
Yeah, yeah, I hear this a lot. I get this a lot from people because, you know, whenever I'll talk about my thing, it's always journaling and people are going, oh, I find it really hard to write, you know, I don't know. But I think for me, I mean, that's definitely a thread for me from writing a child. loved poetry and stories and I was going to be the next Enid Blyton. And, you know, I've got this whole kind of like I loved writing. I remember very clearly lying, writing by the landing light. I was on with, you know, I've been sent to bed, it's in bed, obviously, I should have been asleep. And I'd be there writing by the landing light.

coming through just like little stories are all in pencil to my pencil went blunt because I'd be filling these pages of all these stories. So writing has always been a real thread for me. So there'll be a book one day it's somewhere out there some future version of me is kind of going yeah there's a book coming. It's a declaration.

Reem Kubba (01:21:33.75)
It's a declaration, I hear it.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:21:38.316)
Reem, this has been such a wonderful conversation and I mean we've gone you know all over the place with it but it's been an absolute joy talking to you and find out a little bit more about you all the versions of the Reem that came before the one today but thank you so much for joining me.

Reem Kubba (01:21:55.938)
Thank you so much, Sharon. I really, really enjoyed it. And we've opened up things that I wasn't sure we were going to open up. So it was very unpredictable, but yeah, I'm so glad we did it. Thank you so much.

Sharon Wilkes-Burt (01:22:03.464)
Yeah.

thank you.