Winter Olympic 2010 was a real source of joy and pleasure for all of us.

Many of us feel transformed and changed forever.  It is hard to describe this gigantic phenomenon, still we know in our hearts that being Canadian has found a new definition and meaning.

Our children and youth had the chance to feel a sense of pride and contentment about who they are because the spirit of Olympic was all inclusive. Identity building and culture creation found a way in our children’s heart.  They will benefit from knowing who they are and what country they represent.

Millions of youth gathered everywhere to shout “Canada - Canada” as if they had never knew this word before.  A new, fresh, positive air was shared with all those who were caught in between two or more cultures.  Feeling as being one nation and being part of this larger truth of Canadian identity developed and shifted towards a new era which was blurred before.

Millions of Canadians experienced something extraordinary.   In every community people were part of what was going on here in Vancouver.  For many of us new comers here in Vancouver and for those of us who are native in this country, we could witness this huge, cheerful, and proud crowd on the streets.
For those of us who had the chance to walk on the streets of Vancouver, we could sense partnership, sharing, and ownership of the games. Here in Vancouver and here in Canada, we did see and observe a greater reality, the truth of community building.

For all of us media  users such as TV , we could orient us in the moments of the athleets hard work and challenges.   Being Canadian and becoming Canadian were the outcomes of a nation competing for a new search for identity.

Patriotism and championship for Canada turned out to become as an  embodied  part of every one of us, the essence of who we like to be and who we like to remain.

All kind of people from all backgrounds became one big proud nation called Canada.   Even though as an observer, we would feel to be part of this historic event.

Being witness to this wonderful historic phenomenon made many of us to be willing to contribute to this country whose humbled athletes changed our being in the world.  When it comes to ice hockey, it is now definitely a game that many of us who were raised to be fan of soccer,  we can  can cheer for this interesting game.  For many of us Iranians, integration to the North American culture is a reality here as we will enjoy watching the winter games that did not matter to many of us before.

Finally, it is clear that the notion of change in Canada and Canadian heart occurred because of a holistic approach to the Olympic 2010.
Thank you Canada and Thank you Vancouver for this true life changing experience.

Feb 28 ,2010

www.middlepeace.com

Past couple of years, I have met many Iranian women whom come to counselling for finding a forum to gather their thoughts and strengths.  My observations on how these clients have all been confused and still hopeful, make me write this article.  I will make sure to not specify any details in respect to confidentiality issues.  Still i will focus on the commonalities and difference in my client’s  experiences of clinical depression and clinical challenges.

Most of these clients I have met,  have lived at least 5 or 6 years in Canada.  Some women report numerous clinical symptoms such as anxiety, lack of self-confidence, and need for conformity that has to be studied in the context of  family dynamics in which these clients were raised in.

Some of these women are out of work force and unable to deal with the daily life tasks as  their  symptoms are multifaceted.

Most women report of having  low mood, lack of proper social support and language barriers to begin with.  Despite many concerns, these women are strong persons and they are all willing to find the real and true self of their own.

These women need to be believed and supported in their individual and unique ways of conceptualizing  the notion of change.

Because of my embodied knowledge of the culture of oppression, I prefer not to underestimate the notion of oppressive ideologies (Greene, 2005) when it comes to women’s mental health issues.

Here in Canada the medical modality of handling mental health issues were comparably also wedded (Baker, 2006) to a traditional biomedicine treatment option.

Most female clients I meet, they became  “patients” who are  given drugs for their symptoms; a notion that for many of them was an additional confirmation of their need to be dependent to “others.”  In my idea these women are neither heard or understood holistically and culturally.

By recognizing the harsh, complex, and multileveled socio-political and cultural aspect of why/how many Iranian women develop clinical symptoms, I compare their anxiety to a scream for respect and self-autonomy.

Listening to their  stories, I hear that their behaviours and style of life have been consistent with the social environment (in both countries) that ignored their physiological needs for being recognized as a whole person.

Some individuals develop mood swings that are responsive to the environmental changes, from family of origin to their nuclear family, and from one culture to another.

Unplanned marriage, migration, dislocation, and adjustment challenges in their new home country, experiences of trauma in various format and shapes, despair due to divorce, and role of  single mothers are some of the many additional forces impacting women’s entire being.

From a developmental framework (Broderick &  Blewitt, 2006; Kaplan & Sadock’s,  2003), my female clients ( at least most of them) struggle in their search for an autonomous self and a sense of self-actualization.

In some cases of child hood memories, parents are being described as individuals without  any skills in emotional regulation and emotional intelligence, considering the culture of subjugation that promoted injustice; a reason for why most women have poor emotional regulation skills (Majnaric, 2003).

Instead of autonomy most women learned to be ashamed and as a substitute for taking initiative they felt  guilty for their long and dream of self-control.   Some women report how they tried to  react to certain unjust situations by conforming while saying: “I do not care”, this is a response to a society and a culture that did not care for them as an invaluable individual.

These women’s  life journey has mostly contained intense sense of inferiority, loss of identity, inability to find satisfying relationships, and challenges in engaging in a meaningful work.

Viewing the subject holistically, we have no information about the biological influences on these women and their  reactions to the experienced traumas.  However, environmentally most women have been  surrounded by a “blaming the victim” attitude.  Bowlby (1956) suggests that children who in their school years require extra need for love and affection, most probably have not had a secure attachment in their first three years of life.

Some clients describe their parents as  “cold and distant” , a reason to view an unresponsive parent as a basis for an insecure attachment.  Some women have no early memories of warmth, love, acceptance, or affection.

Regrettably we lack knowledge about the “holding environment” and the “object presenting” that constitutes a growing child’s reality (Winnicott, 1992).  It is however reported by some clients that they  had to always be concerned about their mother’s state of mind and in this path they were not given many chances to develop a healthy self-image (Kegan, 1982).

Different world views between a medical system and client’s conceptualization of  “disease” make it hard for some women to obtain a holistic clinical support; instead they have to keep going for the  biomedicine based treatment  that only confirms these ladies lack of options(Robertson, 1998).

In my humble opinion, women from oppressive system will benefit from working with professional counsellors who has sensitivity and more understanding of global women’s issues (Chung, 2005).  In our role as professional counsellors, a social responsible practice of psychology would require us to broaden our views on women, beyond the traditional notion of individual work with clients (Chung, 2005).

Believing that everything about Iranian women is political rather than personal,  it is not hard to notice the need for liberation (Donovan, 1985)  is out there more than ever before when dealing with women in general.

The notion of change goes home to people when they are being approached in a holistically within the framework of therapeutic relationship and in a safe, person-centered, strength based, cooperative, collaborative, and culturally sensitive counselling.

My client  raises several personal, interpersonal, and societal concerns that are of significance to  me as a counsellor.   A socially responsible practice for me emphasizes on social justice that promotes education, prevention, and outreach (Vera & Speight, 2003).  Moreover an ethical, professional, and accountable practice has to find partnership with community psychology that can address oppression, inequality, and social injustice on a client centered basis (Moane, 2003).

References:
Amnesty International. (2008). Women act against repression and intimidation in Iran. Retrieved     from: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/women-act-against-  repression-and-intimidation-iran-20080228
Baker, N. L. (2006). Feminist Psychology In The Service Of Women: Staying Engaged Without Getting Married. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 30, 1-14.
Bowlby, J. (1956).  The Growth of Independence in the Young Child. Royal Society of Health     Journal, 76, 587-591.
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (Eds.). (2006). The Life Span. Human Development for Helping Professionals. Pearson, Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458.
Chung, R. C. Y. (2005). Women, human rights, and counseling: crossing international boundaries.     (Practice & Theory). Journal of counseling & Development. Vol. 83.
Greene, B.  (2005). Psychology, diversity and social justice: Beyond heterosexism and across the cultural     divide.  Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 18 (4): 295-306.
Kegan, R. (1982). The Enduring Self: Problems and Process in Human Development.  Cambridge:     Harvard University.
Robertson, A. (1998). Shifting discourse on health in Canada: from health promotion toPopulation     health.  Health Promotion International, Vol. 13, 155-166.
Majnaric, I. (2003). Emotional Health:  Promoting Children’s Emotional Health.  The B.C.         Counsellor.  Journal Of The British Columbia School Counsellors’  Association. Vol. 25, No. 2.
Moane, G. (2003). Bridging the Personal and the Political: Practices for a Liberation Psychology.      American Journal of Community Psychology.  Vol. 31, Nos. 1 / 2
Kaplan, H. I. & Sadock, B. J. (2003).  Kaplan and Sadock’s Synopsis of Psychiatry. Behavioral Sciences / clinical Psychiatry.  Ninth edition.
Vera, E. M., & Speight, S. L. (2003).    Multicultural Competence, Social Justice, and Counseling                 Psychology: Expanding Our Roles.  The Counseling Psychologist, Vol. 31, No. 3, 253-     272.
Winnicott, D. W. (1992). The Family and Individual Development.  London, Routledge.

By: Poran Poregbal

Written: January 2009

www.middlepeace.com

Being an Iranian female, living in Canada, being an immigrant, dealing with nostalgia, and trying to grow have never been easy tasks to handle. Now I was adding a new challenge to my list, believing that my resilient mind would help me in my movements and convictions. As I was working in the counselling field already, I was confident that attending graduate school would put things into perspective, and it did.   My challenges and need for adjustment were multilayered.  I was willing to work hard, yet I was not able to foresee how I would investigate my weaknesses on a more clinical platform.  At one point, like many other students, I was applying every single theory and intervention to myself.  In the early stages, I was passionate about the influence of my graduate work on myself and on my interpersonal relationships. I knew that I was going to apply all the clinical interventions to myself as a way of walking in other people’s shoes.

One concept that made complete sense from beginning was the need for giving and receiving feedback. However, I was unaware of my future struggle about feedback. During my adult life, I had participated in many training programs, courses, workshops, and conferences. However, attending graduate school blanketed my entire educational movements. My life in graduate school became a starting point for embracing years of contemplation about what I wanted to spend time on.  In the final chapters of my work in graduate school, I started to realize the significant meaning of my diverse experiences of being a student at the graduate level.  On one level, this topic may be too broad; however, I would like to point to my struggle as a multicultural student dealing with many issues at once.  My self-actualization was about both completing my graduate school and managing my own evaluation of my performance. On this path, I learned that self-reflection is a dynamic part of my journey, either in or out of graduate school.  Interestingly, I have always found myself to be an open book.  However, being constantly evaluated required a deeper level of self-reflection.  Once you are being judged and evaluated on your skills, you realize that you have to dig deep, an act that requires courage and insight.

Attending graduate school has helped me not only nurture myself but also learn to set healthy limits in all phases of my life.   The clinical skills that I have been practicing have created a perspective in my professional work.  Early on I had a vision. I had some implicit plans for my future and the type of work I wanted to be doing.  My enthusiasm and hope for personal and professional growth would, however, be defeated at times. The reason was not the work that had to be done; the challenge was the language by which I wanted to express myself. 

I could not believe that my sense of belonging in the world would be impacted because of my language skills. The issue is not that simple. I had to analyze my struggle from several angles. Firstly, how did I perceive myself and how did others perceive me? Secondly, how would I be emotionally impacted by how I was perceived by others? And finally, what could I do to overcome my sense of inferiority?

For me, although my work in graduate school was positive, inclusive, and insight-enabling, I still have had many moments of self-doubt and despair. The sense of frustration started when I started to receive feedback about my language skills.

My English Language

In graduate school, almost all of my papers would receive this comment: “This student would benefit from a …..”  It was suggested that I attend writing classes and use editing services.  The suggestion itself made sense.  However, these words were like a hammer on my head.  I was in transition due to several developmental stages. First of all, English was my second and third language, into which I was trying to integrate my personal and academic world all at once.  In addition, I was at a stage in my life where I have attended every single writing class I can.  I was sick and tired of attending any more classes.  Besides, I thought our graduate school was ignoring the multicultural student’s need for editing services that many other students in other institutions received. Finally, I was thinking that I was already pushing my limits and lacking support for the hard work I was doing.

In graduate school, I formed a close friendship with several students whose English was at my level, if not lower. We often discussed how we could be supported more by our grad school.  We all worked hard, and at times we hired editors for our papers. Still I would receive the same comments and the same suggestions. That was annoying, and it did not help my anxiety. What my professors did not know was that I had done all I could and I was working constantly on my writing skills. Writing has been a great part of my life, yet my challenge has been to master new languages all the time.  I have lived on three continents and have always tried to work and study in other languages. 

All the comments about my language and writing skills impacted my sense of belonging in the world.  For me, these comments had multiple meanings. I was mindful that the ability to write in a clear and comprehensive way was my greatest desire.  However, I was now frightened because my self-perception and reality did not match.  I was in a profession where clarity of language was both ethical and critical.

Besides, writing has always been a tool for me to embrace fact gathering, information processing, and interaction with the material.  Now looking back, I see how privileged I was as a child.  I was lucky to attend a private school where English was taught to us from grade one. For this reason, I had quite a background in comprehending basic English, while living in an English speaking country would help me to practice my knowledge.  

As a young child, I always liked to write, whether it was my school homework or taking notes about everything.  This habit was encouraged in my family because neat writing is a skill that the Iranian culture values highly.  I remember that for all my school work, right up to my high school years, I always received positive feedback and encouragement for my written work.  I could write essays in no time, when my peers always struggled to scribble one paragraph about the same subject.  In that social context, I came to believe that I was skilled and I was able to verbalize my thoughts. My interest in reading novels and history came to be an additional tool to feed my hunger for understanding the world outside.  A combination of multiple factors had made me believe that I could write. What I did not know then was that my apperception would be challenged later in life due to new circumstances beyond my control.
Moreover, writing for me has always been a visual way to learn, to comprehend, to process, to understand with my brain, my heart, and all my senses.   I take notes, write down concepts, work with them, rephrase them, paraphrase them, put them into meanings, and use them in my own terminology to make them omnipresent in my vocabulary.  Writing for me is a way to incorporate my learning into my everyday life, to nail the theories into my brain, and to organize them into various files, where I would forever have access to a large amount of quality information, reliable sources of theories, and useful concepts.
 For me, integrating with my environment relies on my ability to communicate with people. This is a human factor and I am not an exception.  However, receiving comments about my language skills and written work in graduate school was a bit challenging for me.  I had no chance to improve the situation due to the amount of work and the pressure on me to perform within a given time.  I was unable to say that I was working hard on my weaknesses, and I needed some understanding from the graduate school.  Part of the stressful situation I had found myself in was the notion of my neurotic responses. I was saying “yes….but.”  I was hurt because I had always thought of myself as a good writer. I had always been given positive feedback for my writing skills (In Farsi), and now my world was turning upside down. For me, the meaning of being able to communicate goes back to my childhood dream: to become a writer and an educator.

What my professors did not seem to appreciate was that it was hard to be non-English-speaking and working at this level.  I was aware that it was not my school’s fault that I was bilingual, nor was it their problem that I needed extra time and effort to do the same amount of work as someone else. I was already challenging myself to a level they could not imagine.  I could not disagree with the fact that I live in an English-speaking country and I was attending graduate school in that language.  I was aware of the need for transparency and comprehension of the material for the sake of the work we were about to do. However, the complexity of language and the need for editing my work were beyond a simple explanation. I was suffering and I had to find ways to alleviate my pain.  In part, I started to become angry at the comments and ignore them.  For me, the comment that I needed an English course was discouraging.  This comment made me feel inferior and weak. This remark, although valid, still reminded me of the layers of pain due to migration, dislocation, and loss of roots.  Although I could understand the comments logically, it brought back to me the fact that I wished I could live in my home country, speaking and writing the language I was raised with.

What my professors did not know was that the notion of adjustment had become part of my existence.  I had been committed for the past 20 years to being involved in scholarly work yet in two different languages.

Still I was aware of my own needs. Certainly, one’s work will always benefit from help with editing in any language.  My challenge was how and with what resources to find that service.  The reality that by this time I had tried to read and write in three languages did not begin to explain my hard work in overcoming the challenge.  It was not about having chosen to integrate the languages of Farsi, Swedish, and now English.  It was about living as an immigrant in a new social environment that required a huge amount of adjustment on many levels.  I was thinking that I was a champion for moving to new cultures and trying to become an academic in those languages.  For most people, coming to a new country and learning to speak the everyday language is hard enough. For me, it has never been about everyday conversations. I have valued communication on a higher level because I value scholarly work.

Before coming to Canada, I lived for 12 years in Sweden.  I had the chance to study and work in Swedish, and I had reached a point of fluency both verbally and professionally.  Once I was feeling stable and adjusted, another wave of migration shook my life. Somehow immigration has become part of my life, a concept that I try to comprehend. 

I moved to Vancouver in 1988.  With immigration comes modification, whether it is learning a new language, a culture, or a lifestyle.  My life in graduate school was not only dependent on managing my practice-based skills.  It was about reframing my own mindset. It was about personal growth. 

I appreciated the fact that I was receiving feedback about my language skills and need for improvement.  However, it was not the language that was my main concern.  Rather, it was the notion of finding my comfort zone and sense of safety that would come with time. I was rushing to do my graduate work in English, while it was my second and even third spoken language.   I did expect too much of myself, yet I was at a place in my life where I wanted to accomplish the most.  At age 46, you want to finish your life as a student, and I had reached the maximum level of tolerance for my struggles.  

Based upon the assessment of my hard work in graduate school, I sensed that my humble personality would help me survive the crisis. I understood and accepted the requirements. Still I was struggling to produce comprehensive work.  For some reason I was emotional, which resulted in my not being able to concentrate on details.  There was a gap between my reality and my need for improvement. Basically, I was not transparent in my writing because I was muddled at my own cognitive level. I had lived a life in which I was constantly threatened. My sense of safety and belonging had given way to a level of self pity and a sense of powerlessness. I was pressured mentally because I could not differentiate between the painful story of migration and all the factors leading up to it.  

Now I was learning to specify my need to focus on one task at the time.  I came to think of my mind as strong, yet it was crammed with too many ideas at once. I came to realize how incongruent I had been emotionally, cognitively, and behaviourally. For me, fluency in language was not the problem.  The struggle was fluency to master my own thoughts.  I came to realize that my reaction of feeling offended affected the awareness of my own needs.  I could now recognize that I needed to stay focused and to prioritize.  I had been willing to tell about the world’s problems in one essay, and every time we had a paper due, I could sit down and edit my writing with critical eyes.  However, I was not clear because I was unable to put my experiences into the context of my paper.

Cognitively I had always been aware of the concept of clarity in communication.  However, my emotional investment in areas significant to me caused me to react to events.  My reactions would create a sense of being misunderstood, which would lead to stagnation.  Somehow I was misrepresenting myself all the time.  Once I learned that I have to stay focused on one topic at a time, I could be transparent in my work.  Now I could let go of self-pity.  I was tired of being confused about something whose key was in my hands. I knew by experience that through training and practice my professional work would emerge.  At the same time, I started to adjust the lens through which I was seeing the world.  I could think of numerous instances of positive feedback which I have always had from my peers and coworkers.  I had forgotten about this feedback, which gave me courage to work and write in languages that were not native to me.   I had missed the whole point and stumbled upon my emotions for failing to be true to myself.   The point of clarity in my written work reappeared, as the sunshine would reappear after many foggy days.

At this point, I could see myself as the risk-taker and ambitious person that I am. I came to the realization that my strong sense of who I am has made it possible for me not to be ashamed of my weaknesses. On the contrary, my strong belief in myself was now helping me to realize my need to pay attention to details.  I came to think of my suffering as never having been about the language in which I wanted to communicate and integrate with the world outside. My struggle all along has been about the clarity of my own mind, about the peace of mind that I never had, about a sense of belonging to a world where I wanted to be counted and valued. Now I could see my confused writings in a wider perspective.  I have to focus on one topic at a time and be part of what I want to present. Attending graduate school in the study of professional psychology has come to be a reliable reference point whenever I think of my own personal growth and establishment as a professional.  I am glad this has become clear, at least for myself.

My Social Interest

With inspiration from the Adlerian theory of individual psychology, I managed to start working on my own social interests.  As long as I can remember, I have been keen on writing with the intention of putting into words my observations and personal experiences of social injustice.  I wanted to put into words a culture that I consider to be mute. One thing I consciously started to work on was to take some baby steps in integrating individual psychology with my native culture.  My initial thoughts were that my Iranian culture lacks a clear understanding of psychology as a science and as a practice.

I have always liked to break the cycle of indifference surrounding the turbulent life that we Iranians have been forced into.  Now, studying individual psychology, I realized that in order for myself to live a healthy life, I needed to act congruently with my private logic. I could no longer be confused about how to say all that had to be said. I was tired of being scared of what would happen if I started to talk, not that I was the most important person in the world. However, considering the prohibitions against Iranian woman, I am not supposed to have a voice. I am not supposed to talk, because I will be labelled with one or the other “ism.” This is how extremists in my home country silenced a big nation.  With this spirit and sense of encouragement derived from my widening horizons, I started to design a website. This was in 2007, a time when I had survived my first year of grad school. For some reason the time felt right, although a bright- minded person would not have taken on so many projects at the same time.  For me, doing one project without the other did not make sense.

Slowly but steadily I worked on this website. I enjoyed creating this forum, in which I could write about things that mattered to me and was confident would benefit others. My website soon came to be a place where I could elaborate on my ideas about interpersonal and personal relationships within the framework of my community.  

I remember finding a short comment in one of our texts where the writer suggested that multicultural communities should work on their own version of psychology.  I got excited about this and took that idea very seriously.  This was what I had always believed in, yet I had no framework for it.  Now, being in graduate school, I was not only learning new skills to deal with mental health issues, but also I could become an educator.   My original idea was confirmed now; I wanted to create a special forum in which I could present psychology within the context of my culture, our culture, and our perception of the world around us.

For me, the notion of health and dysfunction is culturally intertwined.   I started to write about our cultural belief that is inviting mental health issues on an unconscious level.  I was aware of the huge amount of work I had to do and I wanted to do it.   I could run a website with only a few articles and no one would expect me to do more.  This was on my own time and based on free choice, something that really mattered to me.  For all these reasons, being in graduate school became a double and triple workload.

I liked to take time to study and comprehend material, but at the same time I had many ideas about pieces of work for my website.  In both cases, I appreciated that I was working towards a social interest in helping others.  I was creating something to benefit others and myself further down the road. For me, helping had many meanings.  I liked to help people to help themselves, to encourage and to challenge our mindset about our lifestyle.

Now my website and graduate work were two areas I was investing in heavily. One without the other would not satisfy me.  With ideas from my graduate work, I could put my thoughts into words in the framework of a website.  Soon I started to receive feedback from the community about my website.  I was aware that many readers would forgive my imperfect use of a language that was new to me, at least new to the extent I had lived in Canada.  In an article, I mentioned that English was my second language when I was attending school in Iran. Soon I was receiving calls and being invited to various workshops and seminars in my community.  My website was being seen by people who were interested in the same line of work I was doing. Slowly but gradually I started to organize psycho-educational workshops for my community, and in this way I could build an alliance with individuals who had the same interests.

What had started out as a hobby to help me with graduate school work was now my website.  I was writing only about my own Iranian culture, but I liked to include others as well.  I believed that we Iranians have blended with many cultures across many borders.   For this reason, if I were exploring the Iranian understanding of the world, then I could help many other cultures to conceptualize us in a broader context.

I took my time to do research.  I could not find enough work that illustrated our daily life as immigrants, how we handle our daily challenges of adjustment and integration.  My website was becoming a place where I was covering a wide range of topics, although at this point I had no idea to what extent I wanted to spend time on it.    I could envision how my website would become something unique, a glimpse into our Iranian culture and of being Iranian.  

The most important aspect of my work was to promote and model an ethical, professional, and collaborative practice of psychology among Iranian mental health workers. In addition, I wanted to help increase public awareness and expectations of the professional practice of individual psychology. 

In the beginning stages, I had a list in my mind of what I wanted to write about: parenting, relationships, depression, anxiety, stress, marriage, cultural dualism, separation, loss, isolation, fear, jealousy, competition, work- and school-related issues. I do believe that our Iranian community needed to talk about many topics.  I wanted to contextualize mental health issues pertinent to the concept of victimization and trauma that in the past thirty years has become an undeniable part of the Iranian lifestyle.   Why victimization?  Iranian people have embodied the experience of humiliation on individual, community, and social levels.  The oppression, gender segregation, and discrimination in my home country have numbed people on many levels.  The mental health issues that make individuals, families, and communities suffer are all due to the perpetuated notion of victimization.  One thing the Iranian government has been successful in is to victimize its nation.  In each case, there are plenty of factors and circumstances present, and each one of us has dealt with it alone, without any social support or acknowledgment from the outside world.  For all of these reasons, I saw it as my duty to write as much as possible and put things into perspective, in a more culturally sensitive manner.

Moreover, victimization is a concept we do not know much about, although all of us have been victims of crime, trauma, sexism, oppression, gender apartheid, racism, and violence.  We have carried the whole burden of these crimes ourselves. Now after two years of hard work, on both my clinical understanding of the world and my multilayered community work, I am proud to say that I have achieved quite a lot. Yet, I have a long road ahead to connect and create further understanding of mental health issues.  Still, I believe I have gone beyond the limits of imagination as to what I can do for a community that has lost its vision.

My website is now a forum for everyone to talk about their ethnical identity as Iranian-Canadians or others.  This is a place to discuss race, gender, ethnicity, class, social problems, mental health issues, family relationship concerns, youth support programs, and much more.   The goal of this website is to create a place to talk and learn to educate ourselves and others about how it is to be Iranian and Canadian, how it is to belong where we are.   Do we really belong somewhere, or are we lost in the midst of all the trauma and tragedy that is a part of everyday life in Iran? What is going on with us?   Who are we?   What culture do we talk about when we brag about our 2500 culture? What is passed down to us and what do we pass on to our children? How would our next generations define their “being-in-the-world?”
These are all important questions that have never been spoken about before, at least not in the light of a healthy conversation. I consider my website as a space for encouragement, hope, and change. I compare mental health with the notion of peace.  In a way, I believe we mental health practitioners are messengers of peace in a more subtle way.

With my website, I promote peacekeeping as a basic tool that we need in building stronger relationships within our communities.  As a counsellor, I tried to start with myself. I believe we can learn to leave our comfort zones and work for the benefit of others. This needs the effort of sacrifice, hard work, critical eyes, and multicultural work.  From the Adler school, to my website, to my clarity of mind, I have reached a milestone.
Acknowledgments:

For all my hard work on this website, I received acknowledgment that meant the whole world to me.  Now I could see that my efforts in writing, although imperfect in terms of the use of English, were valued.  I had sent one article to the North American Society for Adlerian Psychology (NASAP) to introduce my website and tell them how I was inspired by Adlerian psychology (Poregbal, 2008).  To my surprise, the article was published on the front page of their newsletter.

In addition, I have started to send articles to Ezine-Articles.  To date, I have 36 live articles which have a readership of about 3500. I write about a variety of issues that are pertinent to my community. The latest article I wrote was about the Barack Obama phenomenon (Poregbal, 2009).  I am very excited, and realize that with time and through practice I am becoming clearer in my writings, and therefore in my desire to serve my community.

Note: This article was written for my MAQE (as part of my Master Qualification Examination work in Jan 2009).

Poran Poregbal, RSW, RCC

Feb 12, 2010

      Reference: 

Poregbal, P. (2008). New Iranian Website. The NASAP Newsletter.  Volume 41, Number 3, May/June 2008.  Retrieved from January 23,2009: http://www.alfredadler.org/PDF/May-June%202008%20issue.pdf

Poregbal, P. (2009, January 19). Inauguration Day and Barack Obama Phenomenon. Retrieved January 24, 2009.  Retrieved from http://ezinearticles.com/?Inauguration-Day-and-Barack-Obama-Phenomenon&id=1897343

Seeing the torch the other night made me believe in hope for humanity, hope for light, and hope for community building.  I heard the inspiring speech that the torch and the Olympic is about a vision, about a nation, and about a hope.  The torch is all about sense of peace in a world when we need peace more than ever.  Being close to this historic event which is happening in our home town, it is an experience that each one of us feel it individually and uniquely.

Wish Canada and it’s great athletes all the best.  Certainly wish the most golds for this great nation and the best joy for all Canadians. We are proud to be part of this history making event.  And certainly, we may wish for our next generations to internalize this promise of connectedness which is all around us here in Canada.  The world is here and Canada is hosting the world.  What a inspiring sense of generosity and hospitality.

GO CANADA GO. We are watching and celebrating with you.

Feb 12, 2010

www.middlepeace.com

Another family lost their 15 year old boy committing suicide a couple of weeks ago (in January 2010) due to the act of bullying.   A friend of mine sends me this article published today, Feb 4, 2010:
http://www2.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/index.html

Ashkan Sultani was the victim of bullying in school.  His parents told the reporter that they wish their son’s suicide serve as an act of kindness or help others knowing about the ways of preventing these tragedies.
Let’s give our prayers to this family as well as send our condolences to both families who are in pain.

In order to help Ashkan Sultani’s family in raising awareness about the issue of bullying, we have to know many things.
As these parents said, they do not like to point to someone or blame someone.   We could not disagree with the parents, while adding that the issue of bullying is not about blaming,
it is about knowing the borders and the limitations in all relationships.

We need to help our children understand the mechanism of bullying while help the offenders change their ways of interacting in schools and out there.

We need to know and to teach our children and help them to understand that bullying is a serious problem while help the offenders change their ways of interacting in schools and out there.
We may be parent of a child who is a bully or bullying someone.  In either way, it is significant to not take the act of bullying as a victim’s low self-esteem type of blame.
Sometime in our culture, the act of bullying is mixed with the notion of “joking.” The offender always excuses its act by saying: “I was just joking.” Numerous times I have met those families whose children bully behaviour has been noticed,
while parents excuse their children’ behaviour by relating this to act of being childish or else.  Bullying may be childish still this is a serious problem, affecting our children’s physical, mental, psychological, and social health in all aspects.

For the same reason, we have to teach our children that never take any type of teasing, picking on, ridiculing, laughing at, name calling, belittling, threatening, forcing, and making the other feel less. These are all the behaviours that the bullies do in order to take control over the bully.  As parents we have to be aware of what is going on with our children while teaching them to never accepting someone taking control over their mind in this way.

What do we know about bullying?

The Persian translation of the word “bully” gives us: ???? ????? ? ???? ?????

When we are checking in with the English to English translation of the world “bully” we will find these explanations:

A Bully: If someone bullies you into doing something, they make you do it by using force or threats.
If someone bullies you, they use their strength or power to hurt or frighten you.  A bully is someone who uses their strength or power to hurt or frighten people.

About Bullying, there are many good articles out there and I found this one of particular interest, as it talks a little bit about the brain of the person who bullies:
http://www.physorg.com/news145252980.html

As a community, we in our Iranian community have never spoken about bullying and the signs of it.
In order to raise awareness we in the Iranian Educators Society for Families are organizing two public workshops in April 2010, to raise awareness about the victims of crime: Every Victim Matters.
This is part of a plan that is recognized and accepted while it will be funded by the Department of Justice Canada.

On this note, we will talk about bullying as a serious issue and how families can help their children not become a victim for bullying.
We invite all families who are interested to know about this serious issue and we hope we could see Ashkan Sultani and other parents of victims of bully to join us in exploring this issue in our community.
These two public seminars will be held in North Vancouver and Coquitlam as advertised and we invite all families who have been victimized for any reason due to any act of crime or trauma.  This is about: Every Victim Matters.
Please see our website/ News & Events: http://iranianeducators.com/?page_id=265

We like to help our communities grow. Let’s help saving lives by raising awareness.

Poran Poregbal, RSW, RCC
Iranian Educators Society for Families
Feb 4, 2010

Knowing how this woman was a resilient soul, I was sure that she would fight the cancer.  However I could not imagine how.

My cousin is a woman who is funny, strong, positive, and encouraging; however her life was turned upside down due to the cancer, nothing out of the ordinary any ways.

My cousin is in her 50\s and she is a a mother of three adult sons.   This woman is truly the focal point for many people when they lose hope.  Fighting cancer was a big task, something that would become an obstacle in the daily interactions with people.

My cousin was however an exception.

She did not like to let go of her abilities to offer others hope, while now she needed it the most.

In her battle with cancer, she started to reach out, to volunteer for senior homes, to raise money for poor school children, and to invite neighbours or friends for tea gatherings on a regular basis.  She was doing all the work to distract herself from what was really bothering her.

It was obvious that my cousin was trying to fill up a gap, the distance between her awareness of cancer and her positive life habits.  She started to spend her days with social activities as much as her decreasing energy would allow.  At some point it seemed that she likes to deny or ignore the cancer and distract her mind from the painful treatments.

Every time I called, she would avoid any talk about cancer and illness, something that would make her sicker in my point of view.   She would answer my questions about how she was doing, yet she managed to change the subject artistically.

In our phone conversations, I started to talk about positive psychology, meditation, relaxation techniques, and more.  I knew she was interested of these subjects and she would listen to every spoken word.   Phone calls were my only way to reach her and in those one hour or more talks, we made sure to be creative and joyful.   At times, I could hear my cousin’s wishful thinking that she would cure herself by not giving the illness any space in her life; still she had a real battle, which required medical attention and hospital visits.

In every conversations, which we have many of them; she always expressed her desire for not conversing about her illness.  I could realize that her choice of not giving the cancer a place in her life was a positive copying mechanism, yet she needed support in doing so.

Having a network of strong women, my cousin was enjoying all the phone calls from family and friends who lived elsewhere in the world.  I could hear how she was proud of people remembering her although the physical distance was a sad story in itself.   I had her in my prayers constantly and I knew all other people calling her or those who lived in her neighbourhood, would do the same.   She was loved and people could express the love to her, this was more than any one can ask for.

During all these years, I have been able to listen to her struggles in getting better; however our physical and geographic distance would not let me to offer my support more than calling her.   I never had any visual observations of her challenges and maybe just because of that at times I helped her to forget and to reject the cancer at least during our phone conversations.

I knew however that the cost for cancer treatment and the cost for all medications in Tehran was more than she could pay for,  a reason why some small amount of financial support from family and friends would at times go a long way.  In all and all the psychological support that these phone conversations was about, meant the whole world to my cousin.

Anyways, during this hard battle and many near to dead experiences, our phone conversations turned to a new direction.   At some point my cousin told me that one of her best ways of dealing with inner stress was to write journals.   This was a simple observation of a woman whose self concept and insight was inspiring.    She told me about her many journals in which she tries to remember the good things in her life.

Since writing journals was one of my favourites, I suggested that she should consider writing a little book about the topics she was interested in.

One of those topics was the life story of her family, her parents, grand parents, and the unknown generations prior to her grandparents.
We had always spoken about how our past generations were interesting considering those stories we had heard about them.

For some reason this little comment came close to her heart as my cousin started reporting of her efforts in writing the life story.

My cousin whose cancer treatment was successfully finished four years ago, started to gather photos, old notes, and stories about her grand parents.  According to my cousin, the journal   would require some interesting evidence as the hand written notes of her father would add to the value of the family history.

At times, I could feel that the fear for cancer was lost in the moments and excitement for the writing of a family history.

I had never seen anyone taking one suggestion this seriously.

Now having passed her fourth year of a cancer free life, my cousin keeps writing and her story has not finished yet.   Our phone conversations continue to be empowering and important, for the two of us as the deep bonds between us have a healing source.

My cousin has managed to depict the life story of a large family.  She reports having filled up her third large note book which sounds like an anthropologic paper.

On this note, I keep thinking of the impact of writing and its psychological healing effect.

Words are about hope and hope cures human life.  We all need plenty amount of hope and help.
Dec 28,2009

www.middlepeace.com

We should be concerned and be willing to rise above and beyond to discuss why there is silent suffering within our community.  We should feel sorry for how we as a community could be doing more, yet at times we are all caught in details and superficialities.

Out of respect for these people,  no one should be allowed to disclose their identity or feel sorry for them.  Each one of us goes through life differently and individually.

Just two months ago, I heard about the sudden death of a young Iranian woman who lived in Vancouver.  Many of us must have passed her by and some of us may have known her.   She was in her mid-40’s.  She died in silence.  She was a single mother, divorced, depressed, unemployed, ill, and in grief for many unknown reasons.   She was found dead by her relatives.  The  autopsy showed that she died of natural reasons.  Her heart had just stopped beating - I am sure her heart was broken because of many issues that many of our fellow Iranian women and men are dealing with.

We can only imagine how she have felt or what she experienced in her young life.

Besides this incident, there have been many suicides in our community during past couple of years, including a young mother who jumped from a bridge just last year.

We all hear these stories.  Undoubtedly, there are too many of these stories we constantly hear about, things that are happening for  our fellow Iranians either here or elsewhere.

This is devastating to witness this much of pain and suffering among our people.

However we can help one another more, at least for those of us living in resourceful countries like Canada.

The most recent suicide was by a male, someone many of us know.  Again we are focused on the circumstances that led to these exhibitions of helplessness, hopelessness, and pain.

Suicide is one of the areas we never want to hear about. It is hard to contemplate how someone can get to that point.  People who get into this destructive path, they go through a wide range of emotions such as guilt, shame, anxiety, confusion, anger, depression, isolation, pain, and loss.

If we add the couple of shooting incidents in which our young Iranian (mostly male) individuals have been involved, then we can realize that the list goes on and on.

It is important to know that help is available and we can help those who are suffering in silence.
There are enough researches proving how mental health influences our physical, spiritual, and social life.

Challenges in personal, interpersonal, and social relationships do not need to cause us this much of emotional distress.   Divorce, parenting problems, domestic abuse, bullying, dating problems, and harassments are only few areas where individuals and families are affected by without seeking proper help.

Depression is a normal reaction to many abnormal situations.

Therefore, we need to promote help and hope.

Reaching out and asking for help should be encouraged more in our community. It is up to all of us to promote hope.

Help is available.

November 30,2009
www.middlepeace.com

We Iranian know this metaphoric paradigm: “No one scratches your back but your own nails”, meaning no one helps you but yourself.  This is how it feels when realizing the overwhelming amount of issues and problems that our communities face.

We can not afford to let go of our own power and wait for someone else do something for our community.  For years we Iranian have asked all authorities to provide for an “Iran’s House”, however we can not organize our own resources towards something like that.

Now, it is time for action and we have to understand that the solutions to our problems are in our hands.

I will tell you more about what I mean.

Having one epsilon of care for the cultural-political-social-historical and psychological dilemmas we Iranians live with,  we have to think large.  We have to be wishful in our thoughts.  We have to imagine the best we can do in order to anything gets done.

We are all suffering from the constant repressive forces that are worsening the human condition in our communities inside our home country.

However problems do not stay in one place, they move.

They come here with people who are leaving Iran due to the unimaginable hardships.  We have dilemmas here, in our communities where we reside.

The only difference is the degree of problems, however relationship issues, divorce, parenting problems, depression, anxiety, confusion, and family problems find new shapes in our immigrant communities.

We need to  gather our strength and optimism to help our communities in best possible ways.

For this reason, we have established a non profit society to offer our clinical expertise to our people here in Greater Vancouver.

Iranian Educators Society for Families is the result of a wishful thinking and hard work.

Now that we have a society in place, we need support for the delivering of our services.

Yet, we hear some government funded programs being concerned about “duplication of services.”

It is interesting that now that we have for the first time created a place of our own, a place we can use our cultural expertise and clinical support for our people, then we hear about some “concerns.”

It is well perceived that in the North American culture we live in a large competition filed, those who run faster will win, yet not necessary those who run faster always do a greater job.
To those who are concern about our growth and our Society, I would like to say: Sorry, competition is a fact.

At times we have to look at the quality of the services we offer.

This is where my paradigm shift comes to place: No one scratches your back besides your own nails. We got to do it by ourselves.  we can not let our deprssed or abused women be in the long waiting lists for counselling. We can not let parents who do not know how to handle their young children suffer alone. We can help them.

Iranian Educaotrs Society for Families have clinical counsellors and we do not have any waiting list. We like to offer our best practices to those in need in a clear concept: Care.

We have the knowledge and expertise. More wishful thinking is to receive government funding for what we believe is a unique set of ideas and programs.

November 17,2009

www.middlepeace.com

Her name was Forogh Cobra Astaneha, a.k.a Maman Aziz.  She was born sometimes between 1910 and 1915.  Her real birth date is unknown to us as her place of birth.  My grandmother died in 1987, yet, still today, I keep thinking of this incredible woman.  I doubt if she ever knew how influential she was. I am unsure if she knew that she was different and brave.  Surely, her life influenced mine and many other women in my community.  Her spirit and her legacy remain with all of us who had the chance to meet this woman, even only once.  Part of her life was rich, fairytale, and dynamic, while Maman Aziz never took anything for granted.  She had visions for a better life, although her socio-cultural surrounding was what it was, limited and biased.  In short, it is fair to say that Maman Aziz was a worrier, a resilient woman who did never settle for less, while she was never understood by others.  Somehow Maman Aziz represented an emancipated individual that many Iranian women at that time wished to be. She was a real inspiration for women in her community, women who could not even dream challenging life as she did. There are many reasons for this argument.

Maman Aziz was born in a rural area of Tehran.  By the time of her death, she must have been somewhere around 70, I am not sure.  She died a young woman; she left with a silent withdrawal from this world and with many questions unanswered.

I remember Maman Aziz mentioning a neighborhood called “Shah Abdul Azim.”  This was either her real birth place or a place where she grow up.  I think she lived a great deal of her early childhood in that area. She used to talk about her father, her two siblings, and the friendly neighborhood of Shah Abdul Azim.

In our family, we learned to call our grandmother as Maman Aziz, meaning a very dear and beloved mother.  I think many of us Iranians had Maman Aziz in their families or at least Aziz, as this was the nicest way to relate to someone we love or appreciate.  The word mother would be expressed as “mama” with the alphabet “n” added to produce the Farsi word.

Maman Aziz was fortunate to model her love for life until the very end.  She never gave up using fashionable make up, wearing nice clothes, and smelling expensive perfume, even to the very end. Her respectful attitude, skillfully caring interpersonal relationships, and personal integrity made her look much younger than her age.  Her smile and kind words to everyone were her real art.

What we know from her life comes from the memories of all the narratives and anecdotes she told us about her life.

Story telling was a real art of many grandparents who tried to entertain children in long, dark, and silent winter evenings or the summer evenings when the sky was overwhelmed with shiny stars.

Those evenings Maman Aziz stayed with us, we resisted to sleep as Maman Aziz would take us to the world of princess and prince in the ancient Persian kingdom.

Maman Aziz being articulate, could let our imaginations sense the milieu these people lived in, the act of gentleness, and the justice they practiced in solving people’s daily problems.

Listening to those stories gave us a chance to imagine ourselves being that beautiful princess who married this young handsome man who was not from the king’s kinship.  Stories were always about the knowledge, bravery, and act of kindness that were the characteristics for the main character of the story.

Maman Aziz used to tell about the kind princess and princes who humbly traveled to poor people and gave them gifts of love.  The stories were always about good and kind people receiving what they deserved, the treasure of love for those who needed it the most.  Interestingly Maman Aziz lived her life like those stories. She found her prince in a very unusual way for an Iranian woman who could stand up for herself.

Maman Aziz was raised mainly by her father.  Her mother had mystically died when Maman Aziz was a little child.  Maman Aziz had few recollections of her mother.  The mystified mother was rarely mentioned by Maman Aziz, a reason for us to wish that we knew more of her mother or my great-great grandmother. She knew about her mother through the narratives she had heard, that was a beautiful and kind woman.  The beauty must have passed on to my grandmother because she was truly glorious to me.

Maman Aziz however described her father as a man of hard work, interested of poetry and a man who encouraged his children to live a life with dignity.

Maman Aziz recalled her father as a loving dad who gave her and two older siblings love, respect, and praise.  She spoke of many moments of care, storytelling, and good relationship with her father.   Looking back I realize that, my grandmother always spoke of a good father who did not discriminate her because of her gender, something that gave her the strength to be the woman she became.

Maman Aziz could read and write Persian / Parsi language well.  In particular she was interested to read children’s story books.  She liked novel and the last book I remember lending her was “Papillion” which was a popular movie and book at the time.

In a time of huge restrictions for girls, Maman Aziz had the chance for learning horseback riding and playing cards.  Her childhood developed into adolescence without any huge crisis. Soon into an early adulthood when she at age 18-19 was married to a young man (my grandfather) who was her cousin.

Her marriage started well and she was pregnant soon.  She gave birth to my mother who was named as Esmat.  However, soon she realized her relationship with my grandfather was not going well.  At some point after my mother was born, my grandmother knew that she could not continue her marriage. Maman Aziz had realized that her husband was turning to an aggressive and demanding man.  Ha was a common man who did not know how to a treat a woman.  Although my grandfather was not abusive, yet my grandmother disliked her husband differing significantly from the gentle prince characters in the many stories she knew.

She had more dreams for her life. In a time when women would be not having any idea about their rights, my grandmother did rebel.  She had a deceive mind and she was ready to seek her true self.

I guess Maman Aziz had a model for her life.  She had values and interests for a respectful, healthy, and more romantic relationship, which was not to be found in her marriage.
Certainly Maman Aziz was mirroring a decisive father or mother or someone else who had taught her to respect herself.   Unhappy about her marriage, she consulted her father who supported her in asking for a divorce.  At some point when my mother was about three years old, Maman Aziz finalizes her decision and her divorce was registered in mid 1930,s ; an act that was least spoken about for even decades after that.

Undoubtedly, divorcing a husband for an Iranian woman must have been challenging and an unimaginable act for many women even within the elite families.  Divorce has never been a natural solution for large number of Iranian women who suffer in the hands of abusive husbands.  My grandmother came to this decision for about 60 years ago in Tehran, a decision that still today gives me some Goosebumps.

Still, my grandmother was a regular woman who was about to challenge people’s attitudes, beliefs, and ideas.

When the Iranian society recognized no rights for women, Maman Aziz, my grandmother could get through the divorce process while she was stating her rights to respect and happiness.

She asked for divorce from her husband with whom she had only lived for 2-3 years.  She decided that she had enough of a man who mistreated her and she asked her husband to let her leave with her young child.

The reality and crisis would hit when she had to face the truth about a family law that would not accept women as a divorced custodial parent.  She decided to leave the marriage while fighting for the rights to her daughter.

Maman Aziz has told us many stories of how much she experienced anxiety, fear, and anger at the same time as she worked hard to get her daughter’s custody.   To her, there was no way she could stay in an unhappy marriage, while she would not let go of her child.  She knew this was the taste of injustice due to a society ruled by patriarchy and the submissive laws where women who rebel had to be punished.  Maman Aziz made a painful decision and that was to leave her daughter to the custody of her ex-husband.

Those years few women could work outside their home as women were rarely recognized being part of a society. Maman Aziz was skillful in her own way.  She visited any ministry office she could to ask for help. In this battle she learned to stand up for her own rights when there was no outside recognition for a divorced woman.  Maman Aziz had to fight while she was under pressure from her community to return to the divorced husband and remarry him for the sake of her child.

Years went by.

Maman Aziz recalled those years as devastating and disturbing to the vision she had for a dignified life.  She was working hard to process her new situation, a young divorced woman in a society where gender roles were clearly defined.  A woman had to stay under umbrella of a man called husband.

Despite the defeat, she had the support from her father to whom she could always go for seeking some peace and quiet.  While challenging the existing court system in Tehran, she was awarded some hourly based visitation rights of her daughter.  She could visit the child every other week in the place of my grandfather, the man, Maman Aziz had divorced.
At this point of time my grandfather had managed to build a new family life for himself, so my mother had a step mother now.

Maman Aziz welcomed the chance to visit her daughter regularly, yet she decided to use her charm while approaching life with a new movement.  She comes back in a position no one could deny her the rights to see her daughter. Maman Aziz hated to be limited in time and place, while she liked to impress the ex husband and his wife.

Maman Aziz was a generous woman and she was a giving person.   She used her talents to put my grandfather and his wife in a position they would treat this little child of hers in a nice and gentle way.

From this moment on, Maman Aziz moves on in her life.   Meanwhile Maman Aziz meets a real gentle- man, a man of class and dignity.  Maman Aziz falls in love with this man who became a true love, alike the prince of stories who was a rich, educated, passionate, humble, and good looking man.

Maman Aziz marries this man whom gives her a decade of exciting and joyful life as they traveled around the country quite frequently.  Being married to a rich man opens up a door for her to impact the visitation rights to her daughter.  Maman Aziz visits her daughter or my mother quite regularly and these are moments of surprise for everyone in my grandfather’s household.

These are the hours that everyone in that neighborhood remembered long enough.  As she had access to a quite rich lifestyle, now she would show up with her modern covered wagon which was a horse drawn vehicle.  Besides that Maman Aziz had her own driver, who would stop the horses nicely, leave the drive seat, and come get the little door of the wagon for my grandmother to step down the movable stair.

Although Maman Aziz was a real stylish and naturally beautiful woman, still she made some extra efforts to wear nice dresses she had purchased in some of Teheran’s nicest boutiques and the eye catching jewelry she was in love with.  Upon arrival at my grandfather’s house, while her driver would drop of the boxes of gifts on the front door, Maman Aziz would use her natural charm to pass individuals who were welcoming her to meet her daughter.

In these scenes she remains humble, as her main purpose was to teach everyone for treating my mother well, as children in my mother’s situation would be treated as less than.

The number of expensive and elegant gifts for my step mother and her children along with the gifts for my mother would be forever recalled as exciting yet overwhelming.  Still Maman Aziz was told that my mother would be denied using all those nice clothes that she had received.  She could do nothing to reverse the clock, while she was hoping for a solution down the road.

If she could not live with her own child, yet she hoped to influence circumstances around the child for a happy upbringing. Yet, Maman Aziz was wrong, in those years; a child whose mother had left would be bullied and laughed at because she was a “motherless” child.

Month after month, Maman Aziz uses her visitation day to demonstrate grace, beauty, and sense of integrity.  Obviously, she tried to maneuver her wealth in order to implicitly ask for a good care of her daughter. Social status was now working for her and she was enjoying her lifestyle.

Maman Aziz recalled her social life with her second husband quite cheerfully.  She offered others a taste of this colorful life, by throwing parties, arranging for card-playing evenings, offering good food, and sharing her wealth with others.

Somewhere, Maman Aziz lived her dream life, yet always carrying a deep sadness inside.  A trauma was also about to occur. After 10 or 11 years of marriage, her beloved husband dies and leaves my grandmother as a young widow.

The pictures left on this man whom Maman Aziz called her love shows a middle-age, well-clothed, well-shaved, and handsome man with a nice smile.

It is not known how Maman Aziz manages the grief of a lost love, in a time when she became a young widow in her mid 40,s.  The house she lived in with her husband would soon be claimed by the deceased husband’s siblings.

Without arguing with these people, my grandmother leaves the house that she had shared so much joy in it with her beloved prince.

People had advised her to claim that house however; Maman Aziz did not choose to go that route.

She moved out of the house while knowing that she had to start all over again. She had no money and no savings. She took her jewelry that would offer her some financial support.

Maman Aziz moves in with her older sister whom lived as a widow too.

Maman Aziz and this sister had something in common. Both had divorced their husbands. Her sister had divorced her husband while she had adult children. Quite interesting that the sister had found out the husband had a second wife, an act that is still a right for many men in Iran.

The two sisters lived together for a longer period of time until at some point Maman Aziz finds her third husband; an entrepreneur, another rich man, whose collection of suites, hats, and shoes cost a great deal.

A few years of living with this man offers Maman Aziz more chances to continue her quite different life style.  Somehow the third marriage had become a way for Maman Aziz to escape the reality of living a widow life with no support.

The sadness over how she did not have control over her daughter’s life never let Maman Aziz live her seemingly busy life.  All the parties she was invited to by all the rich people she knew were quite fascinating.   Maman Aziz had any plan for what if she would become lonely again.  And it happened.

Her third marriage was gone in one winter night early 1960’s, as this quite nice husband dies of cancer.   Maman Aziz was left lonely again and she kept asking herself why she would lose people whom she loved the most.

The next two decades she lived a quite, lonely, and simple life, while her large habits of giving gifts and sharing love continued.  She managed to receive a little pension through her late husband; however she came to find new ways of supporting herself.   She was a real survivor and her next movements in life are sings of enthusiasm to do the best under circumstances.
Her habits of playing cards were now something that came to her life with a new blueprint.

There were people who would hire her to arrange card clubs for rich ladies who liked to do something new.  In these events she would use her charm to tell fortunes through cards when she would put numbers and figures together to tell something about the person sitting in front of her.
In a little while, she became a psychic whom people trusted because she was quite articulate, smart, people person, and intelligent.   All those years she told us stories about princess and princesses, she was filling her life with a rather different lifestyle.
Maman Aziz had learned to live with her extraordinary senses in a world where she had to survive using some tricks involved with magnetism.   Maman Aziz was rather talented at offering hope in her role of a woman, a friend, a neighbor, a grandmother, and now as a psychic.

I do not believe she ever planned to become a psychic; rather she came to find herself in a role where she could use her long life strengths.  After all, she believed in the value of goodness and kindness when outer world was not offering much.  Her interaction with a fairly rich community was a reason she could be paid as people were interested of what she had to say.  Maman Aziz managed to develop her creativity in her new and very different life as a psychic, although she never identified herself in this role.
It was quite remarkable that people would pay her for her services which were about giving them hope.

I guess she managed to encourage people living their life, once uncertainly and ambiguity was pushing hard.

Maman Aziz was criticized by others whom had hard time comprehending an independent woman she was.   Indeed she was always criticized for who she was.   Now with the hindsight we know that she was an emancipated and a free soul who could not be stopped for what she thought was best for her at that time.
Maman Aziz did survive one divorce, two deceased husbands, and many lost dreams. However one thing she never came in ease was the pain of losing a daughter whose life came to be very different than the courageous mother.  Maman Aziz tried to help the adult daughter who came to have her own family, yet the complexity and severity of the mental health issues that the daughter was exhibiting, was more than Maman Aziz could live with.  Her daughter was that “motherless” little girl who always missed a mother who could offer her love and attention.
The amount of gifts Maman Aziz had showered her daughter and the ex-husbands’ family, had not helped at all.   Maman Aziz died knowing that her daughter deserved much better life; still she had not received it.   The sadness over a hurt daughter was deep, although Maman Aziz did what she could to be the loving mother she was.
We know she is watching over us.

October 22, 2009
www.middlepeace.com

Our younger generation born after 1979 shows to be most democratic groups of us, who will build a new Iran away from ideology, racism, hatred, and sexism.  Most of us, however could not comprehend what this younger generation is capable of until the preparation for June 12, 2009 presidential election.  Here we could witness a new Iran and a new group of us coming to the play arena of Iran’s politic.  Although they experienced most horrible crack down after the election coup, still today these most intelligent group of us are fighting back for their rights.  This was how the green movement came to be about a new life for Iran.

Green has become the color for change in Iran. Green has turned out to be the color of dreams for a nation that has a long time been suffering in the hands of extremists and Islamic fundamentalists.  Green is now the color of peace for Iranians who ask for human rights and democracy.  Finally, freedom, justice, and respect for human life for Iranians are now highlighted in green.

Inside Iran: These days the green movement of Iranians asking for change is taking a new route.  With the opening of universities students are re-structuring their resiliency, their strengths, and their fight with a repressive government that is cruel and unpredictable.

Listening to the students demonstrations in Tehran’s universities, you can hear they chant: Torture-rape has no effect anymore.  Watching all the video clips and images covering the news about the green movement from all over Iran, you cannot distract the tears running your cheeks.

Outside Iran:  Everywhere Iranians are, those who can let go of own agendas and self-righteous type of behaviors, join all others who will in solidarity with our brave younger generation fight the darkest and most dangerous regime of our history.

Praying for peace is all the green movement does particularly these days when repressive regime of Iran is working hard to get the world into a war because this regime survives only in war and hatred.

Therefore:  Green is about appreciation of new life for Iran and Iranians in peace.

September 29, 2009
www.middlepeace.com