Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
"Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership" and "Frame of Reference" - Coming together are conversational style shows with local, national, and global experts about issues that affect all of us in some way. I’m, at heart, a “theatre person”. I was drawn to theatre in Junior High School and studied it long enough to get a Master of Fine Arts in Stage Direction. It’s the one thing that I’m REALLY passionate about it because as Shakespeare noted, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players”. Think about the universality of that line for just a moment. Think about the types of “theatre” that play out around us every day in today’s world. The dramatic, the comedic, the absurd, the existential, the gorilla theatre (it’s a thing, look it up) that is pumped into our Smart Phones, TV’s, Radios, and PC’s every minute of every day.
Think about the tremendous forces that “play” upon us - trying to first discover, then channel, feed, nurture, and finally harvest our will power and biases in order to move forward the agendas of leaders we will likely never meet. Think of all these forces (behind the scenes of course) and how they use the basic tools of theatre to work their “magic” on the course of humanity. Emotionally charged content matched to carefully measured and controlled presentations.
With that in mind (and to hopefully counter the more insidious agendas), I bring you the Frame of Reference "Family" of podcasts, where the voices of our local and global leadership can share their passion for why and how they are leaders in their community and in many cases, the world. Real players with real roles in a world of real problems. No special effects, no hidden agenda, just the facts and anecdotes that make a leader.
And at the risk of sounding trite, I sincerely thank my wife Ann and my two children Elisabeth and Josiah for continually teaching me what leadership SHOULD look like.
Frame of Reference - Profiles in Leadership
The Art of Wellness in Design with Mahwish Syed
When Mahwish Syed, a beacon of resilience and creativity, graced our studio, she brought with her a tale of triumph that has the power to ignite a transformation within us all. As an award-winning designer and author, she recounts her confrontation with breast cancer and how it became the catalyst for her book "Purgatory to Paradise," a testament to her journey of creating a healing sanctuary at home. Our dialogue traverses beyond her story, extending to the profound impact of our mindset and surroundings on our health, guided by the principles of epigenetics. Mawish's design sensibilities, inspired by films like "A Room With A View" and the Pelican chair, also color our conversation revealing her unique approach to life and wellness.
Transformation is a dance with change, and as Mahwish shares her personal narratives of welcoming her son into the world prematurely and facing the trials of cancer, we uncover the strength that adversity can bestow upon us. The episode weaves through the symbolism of the snake and the myth of Persephone, drawing connections between spirituality and quantum physics, encouraging us to welcome change as a harbinger of growth. We dissect the importance of personal mythology, the acceptance of our darker facets, and the liberation found in weaving our passions into our work, nudging listeners towards a journey of self-discovery and authentic existence.
Our exploration culminates in a contemplation of the spaces we inhabit and how they can be transformed into sources of healing and rejuvenation. I share insights from my design background, challenging what's commonly accepted as 'healthy' and 'environmentally friendly,' and delve into the importance of making conscious lifestyle choices for our health. From the detrimental effects of blue light to the calming influence of our sensory experiences, we examine practical ways to mold our environments to foster well-being. This episode is an invitation to redefine the way we live, interact, and heal in our personal paradises, all while being serenaded by the inspiring journey of Mahwish Syed.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
Welcome to Frame of Reference informed, intelligent conversations about the issues and challenges facing everyone in today's world. In-depth interviews to help you expand and inform your Frame of Reference. Now here's your host, raul Labres.
Speaker 2:Well, welcome everyone to another edition of Frame of Reference Profiles in Leadership, and I am excited today. This has been just a wonderful run of interviews I've been having lately, because it's people that I've never met before. It's people that have really insightful and you know comments as well as wonderful backgrounds. So we're doing exactly what I set out to do with this podcast from the beginning, and that's to interview people to give everyone that listens a new Frame of Reference, and today's guest is no slouch in that area. Let me tell you I am so pleased to be talking with Mawish Syed.
Speaker 2:Mawish is a. I'm going to actually read something to you from your executive summary for Purgatory to Paradise, because I thought it was actually. I liked it better than your bio. I'm sorry, anyway, because of what it says about you, and Mawish has written a book called Purgatory to Paradise. She is an award-winning designer and she celebrates beauty as a vehicle for healing. When Mawish was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2019, she faced a crossroads. She could run from the fear, the distress and the ominous history that word cancer holds in our imagination, or or she could walk proudly into the illness and find her way to wellness, reemerging from her personal underworld, empowered and burnished, like many of mythology's greatest heroines. That is just fantastic. I'm sorry. I don't think you can get any better than that for a theater person like me, especially right To have come forth from your underworld. So thank you, mawish, for being with us, for coming through your underworld and taking time to join us today on the show.
Speaker 3:So glad to be with you, Ro.
Speaker 2:So, mawish, I want to find out a little bit more obviously a lot more later on, but if you had to just explain, I kind of called it our elevator speech. So if you're in the elevator with someone and they ask you what do you do, what would be your response for that?
Speaker 3:I transform your health and your home into a healing oasis.
Speaker 2:Boy, that's pretty succinct, In which what if someone at that point says uh-huh, and how does that work? What goes on at that point?
Speaker 3:Oh my God, let me show you yeah, let me show you how to turn your purgatory into your paradise.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, and there is a. I saw somewhere else in the notes that you do talk quite a bit about epigenetics, so which I don't know that how many people will be familiar with that whole concept. But there is this scientific realm, now that has been explored, where we don't have to change DNA in order to change outcomes in our health and even our psychology of things. The reality is that our behavior, our environment, all of the things that are thought processes, all of those tie into our genes hence the epigenetics and can turn things on and off. So which is, you know, bright skies are going to clear up.
Speaker 2:Put on a happy face, right, I think, of my theater background. There's a lot of truth to that, and you know, you see people that are born old, you know, and just stay old throughout their lives, and there are others that never grow old. So one has to assume that there is something different, because they're both human beings, it's just there are other things that play in this whole process. So let's see if we can get a hint of what those things are with you by playing my favorite things. Okay, one of these days I'll hopefully have enough money that I can get Julie Andrews permission to use her version of, because it would be just wonderful little intrude. Well, that, that, that, that. Anyways, here we go, and I think I've explained to you. This is the Rorschachian, you know view of things, where I just throw something out, you throw it out. There's no right or wrong answers, there's just the answer. Okay, so here we go. How about we'll start something easy? How about your favorite song?
Speaker 3:Oh my goodness, Lately it's Mysterious Ways by you Too.
Speaker 2:Really Okay, interesting, okay. How about a favorite recording artist, as long as we're on that bent.
Speaker 3:Favorite recording artist lately would be Cannons.
Speaker 2:Really, I don't know that group at all, so interesting. Okay, how about favorite movie?
Speaker 3:A Room With A View by EM Forte. Really and as a matter of fact, james Ivory and a small merchant who were the producers and directors I met James Ivory on Halloween. Yeah, that was a good time.
Speaker 2:That must have been thrilling in so many ways. Yes, what do you like about the movie?
Speaker 3:A Room With A View. Oh my gosh. Well, it is divinely romantic.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:And it takes place in Italy and Florence, and it's really about following your bliss and taking risks, and that's really what struck me and has always struck me. It's been around for a long time and it's still a favorite.
Speaker 2:Yeah, isn't that a 60s or 70s movie? I'm trying to think 80s. Is it Okay?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, it's a classic nonetheless. So I'm glad that those classics are still alive in folks like you. How about, do you have a favorite chair?
Speaker 3:Oh, that's a good question. Hmm, I do like the Pelican.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I like the shape of the Pelican chair. It's a classic mid-century chair.
Speaker 2:Okay, do you have a favorite one at your home that you go to that anyone else takes it, you say, out of my chair, so that's interesting.
Speaker 3:I spend a lot of time at my desk, so it has to be a comfortable chair. Okay. And that's an upholstered chair that I use.
Speaker 2:Okay, there are some. I know my father-in-law had a chair. He had a lazy boy chair that he had worked it into his body form and if you sat in that chair and he came on, there was no question, you just got up and moved to another chair. So that was, I would say.
Speaker 3:I have another one, I just remembered. It is a 1920s Boudoir chair that I used in my store and basically we sat it was a pair and I sat with my brides where they confessed all their problems and issues and relationship issues and while we were making their dress.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I still have those chairs and now they're my Boudoir chairs- Well, and you with the design background I know, with my theater background too I tend to think a lot about it's not just about the function. The form follows the function, and there are oftentimes forms that are exquisite and there are other forms that are just very simple, but all of them can be very just, alluring. You know, have an emotional response that comes from I just find that to be interesting how you look at the structure of design and how things proceeded through history, and there's really, I think, a fascinating correlation there between what was going on in the culture and in that part of the world at that time, and then the furniture and, of course, the clothing and all of those things that were part of that. And everything makes more sense when you understand the whole gestalt, I guess. Ultimately. So how about you have a favorite animal? Snakes, snakes, oh, snakes. You're not Indiana Jones, then he hates snakes. That's, that's interesting. Why snakes?
Speaker 3:Although I love Indiana Jones, why snakes Snakes? I write about this in my book. I fell in love with snakes when I was a little girl. I would sneak out of our house in Pakistan and go to the snake charmer and watch the cobra dance, and I grew up with also folktales in my family being told about snakes and how they played a part in our family's history.
Speaker 2:Oh really.
Speaker 3:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and by a.
Speaker 3:They're not. You know, in the Western world they're demonized, but in the Eastern, a lot of the Eastern mythology venerate snakes. They represent female sexuality, immense amount of prosperity and good fortune and immortality. Think about the symbol of the Uroboros, where the snake's eating its tail. This idea of you know, transcending time is something I also talk about.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, it's weird too In Western civilization even the medical sign, the sign of doctors, has the snake intertwined and that, as I understand that, comes from biblical times where Moses put up the staff that basically, you know, killed all of the snakes that were plaguing the people at the time. So you know that's it goes way back with the Western mentality to have that sort of demonization. Well, I mean the, you know, the serpent in the garden, right, I mean it's all the way back to the beginning of things.
Speaker 3:So Well, even predating Judeo-Christianity and I talk about this in my book I had the symbol of the caduceus, of Hermes and the staff of Asclepius. The snake is indeed wrapping around a branch which I think Christianity ripped off and turned into a whole other story.
Speaker 2:Probably, probably. There's a lot of that cross right pollination of things. So how about you have a favorite author besides yourself? Okay, you can't say yourself.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, Joseph Campbell.
Speaker 2:Okay, why.
Speaker 3:Because he really dealt into the heart of humanity and realized. He did comparative studies of different mythologies and folklore around the world and came up with that hero's journey and I so much relate to him. I adored that man really. I loved and he's quoted in my book too.
Speaker 2:Okay, so now are you going to get to meet him too, like you did with the?
Speaker 3:Unfortunately he passed for yeah so.
Speaker 2:Oh well, maybe in the afterlife, that would be nice. So okay, last question Is there a favorite memory that you have, a favorite thing that has happened to you at some point? That when you run across something that reminds you maybe a smell or you know a particular song, oftentimes I think for people that when you have that reminder you can go back to that place, that memory and just have a sense of this is a center point for me. This is a part of the core of who I am and you can celebrate it if you will.
Speaker 3:I love that question, Raul. I would say it's waking up really early in the morning in my grandmother's garden listening to the parrots walk around in the trees and smelling the jasmine and the roses and just watering her plants, watering the garden and listening to the birds. It's such a fun moment for my childhood and I do that and, as a matter of fact, I recreate that paradise here in New York City.
Speaker 2:Excellent, excellent. And that's so important too that we, I think far too often we don't even take the time to figure out those moments, you know, to realize that that is a part of our heritage, our personal journey, right, and to be able to celebrate that as well as just commemorate and be thankful for that. You know, I think oftentimes we just we need to spend more time being thankful period, right. So well, thank you for your honesty with all that. So let's talk a bit about you. Have some wonderful talking points, so let me get a better understanding.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like your breast cancer in 2019 was really kind of a that was a formative, a crucible moment for you. Have there been things that you think, even leading up to that point, that prepared you for that time? Because it strikes me that you made an unusual, it had an unusual response to that challenge and it would. It seems to me that there had to have been some preparation for that to enable you to make that choice instead of the, you know, sort of atypical oh what was me? What am I going to do? My life is over. You know mentality that often happens.
Speaker 3:I was initiated during the birth of my son, raul. I had him very early. He was born three months early and I was hospitalized and spent time in the hospital for a month before he was born, on bed rest. So, yeah, I had always me moment when I was like wait, what do you mean? I can't leave, what are you talking about? I felt like I was, you know, going to prison, but it was saving my life and saving his life.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, that perspective definitely helped me understand that sometimes what appears as a calamity can actually be a blessing in disguise, and to not throw literally a pun intended baby out with a bathwater and say, oh my God, that's it, that's over, like my life is over. No, I looked at cancer as a way to hmm, well, that had an interesting turn of events, like, what is this? What is the universe telling me? What am I supposed to learn from this? And I started to investigate instead of just taking it as at face value. Okay, that's, yeah, life as I knew it was definitely over. But again, like that oroboros, like the snake, we have that ability to shed our skins and start all over again, and that's why I think the symbolism of the snake is such an important thing for me because I really was shedding during chemo and radiation and all the cancer treatment, the allopathic treatment, where I was literally shedding skins and coming out as the goddess once more.
Speaker 3:But if you look at any ancient mythology, any kind of hero's journey, there's always an obstacle that the hero has to overcome. You are not, you know, you just aren't handed this. Okay, you're great. No one has to become great right, and one has to go through that crucible, that process, that challenge, and come out the other side transformed. Really, you are no longer the person you are and I think that's a really healthy thing to do. It's a healthy thing to embrace that change. And I think sometimes we're afraid of change. Sometimes it takes something like cancer to make us change, unfortunately, and I hope you know for people that they don't need to go through that in order to come to that conclusion. But I think it's really important to recognize that each and every single one of us has that opportunity today to change.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and in fact, the only things that don't change are dead right. I mean, when you come to think of it, I oftentimes will challenge friends of mine that say I don't like surprises, and I think to myself how did you get out of bed this morning? You know, because everything, everything that happens any day, even if you have a routine, it's still a surprise. It's something that you haven't done before, you haven't done it that way at that time, whatever before. So our response is critical, right, yeah? So how do you, how do you maintain that? I think you know, a lot of times we do have this. I would call it like the higher self, right, the, the, the self that sees a perspective that in fact pushes us or, you know, pulls us, if need be, towards, you know, a higher level of thinking, a higher level of hoping, of dreaming. You know all of those things. How do you? Do you have a secret sauce, if you will, to maintain that perspective for yourself?
Speaker 3:Yeah, her name is Persephone.
Speaker 3:She is the goddess Persephone that I write about in my book and she's been around since I was nine years old when I discovered her in my Montessori school third grade class, and I think what really resonated for me about her is the idea that she goes into her underworld and she comes out the other side.
Speaker 3:She's one of two gods, olympian gods, who's able to kind of commute between life and death, and it's not lost on me that I ended up designing Persephone series. When I was doing fashion, had my dress shop downtown, I did a whole Persephone series and who the hell knew that I was actually going to become her. And I think the symbol of who she is and what she represents for me really helps guide me because she allows me to look past the surface of things. I mean, I'm the type of person who believes more in the unseen than the seen role that's really important to recognize, because the idea of Maya, the idea that the world is an illusion, that there's a plasticity as well and a neuroplasticity, the ability for us to evolve and shift I think that's really rooted in who we are on a much spiritual and deep biological level as well. That's something I speak to in my book.
Speaker 2:Boy, you know. And it gets into a whole bunch of different things that are going on in all sorts of domains. I think every time someone starts talking about things of that nature, I think, well gosh, isn't that just the same thing as quantum physics and the way that they're trying to explore this whole idea of the quantum dimensions, the idea of quantum computing, that something is not just a yes or a no. It's also both the idea that you can have something working at that speed to see all possibilities and from all of those possibilities choose one that makes the most sense or will cause you to arrive at the requested solution.
Speaker 2:I love that Persephone has been such a personal marker or personal hero heroine of yours. That speaks volumes about you. Honestly, anyone that wants to go ahead read, go on Wikipedia. If I know about Persephone, she is a rock and gal. Let me tell you in a lot of ways. What about Persephone's challenges? Do you identify with those? I mean her journey through the underworld as I remember it and it's been a long time, sorry, it's fraught with a lot of nasty stuff or things that she has to really wrestle with her own psyche. Ultimately, I guess that's how I think of it at least.
Speaker 3:That's a really interesting way of putting it, because one of the things I talk about is to embrace your shadow and the idea that your shadow and all the bits of you that we like to shovel under the carpet, so to speak, they still are part of us, To embrace the full spectrum of our beingness, and I think that's really important to recognize especially the shadow side of life, which is death. I think a lot of people still are in this weird construct like death is going to happen to other people and not me. We're all going to die at some point. To face our own death in a way that is graceful is really important. Back to what you just hit upon and made me laugh when you were talking about quantum physics. I designed a clothing collection inspired by Brian Green's Elegant Universe. Oh really.
Speaker 3:I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Oh, does Brian know this? Because I would think he'd be all over that.
Speaker 3:Right yeah. And also I'm certified in quantum biology. Oh really. That's what I'm weaving into my designs right now, Raul. Okay, wow.
Speaker 3:I have a strong science brain and an art brain. They're really equally balanced, equally just like life and death. So this idea of our shadow, it's really important to explore because when I'm working with clients, design clients who are afraid to really choose that thing that gives them joy, like the way you were asking the questions what's your favorite? This, what's your favorite that? I asked them that and it's almost like a pre-prescribed, like oh, I should like this because that's what's in fashion, or I should like that because that's the in artist. I'm like, no, what do you really like? It's not about trends, it's not about what's in fashion, it's not what your neighbors have or you're so-and-so you're a fashionable friend whatever.
Speaker 3:What do you like? Right.
Speaker 3:Let's discover that this stuff role has been shoved into the dark, into the closet, into like it's put away. And let me tell you as I get older, the more, the older I get, the more childlike I get. The older I get, the more I get, you know, like back to the embracing the inner child and me, like what would my six-year-old you know Mahosh want? What would she have done? Like I have recreated my grandmother's garden in my apartment in New York City. I have a parakeet that flies around. I've had five. I had like talking birds, I have had like all sorts of flora and fauna. I have a present here and you can see a little one here. But like I have all that Scented orchids, orchids that smell like coconuts. You know, like I use fragrance as a part of creating that whole sensory experience in my design.
Speaker 3:And that's important because it's linked to memory. It's a very primal sense. So I think the older I get, the more I reclaim my innocence, which is important.
Speaker 2:Boy. You know, I think of you mentioned Judeo-Christian. I think of the story of Christ saying unless you be as one of these, when the children would run to him, you shall not see the kingdom of heaven. You know, and I've believed in that for a long time. Just because when I direct, you know, one of the first things I talk to with casts is why do you think they call it a play? You know, and getting back in touch with the fact that the only way that we're really going to get at the root of what this play is about it, what the center story is of this, is if we learn to play again and try different things and see what will fit correctly or what fits most comfortably for you, and make sense of this whole journey.
Speaker 2:It's a fascinating thing to get people to rediscover their childhood. And you have to be brave, right? I mean, when I think about the whole idea of you know, facing the world and saying, yeah, I might my wife and daughter go crazy cuz they watch. You know, like project runway and I'll see the stuff come down the alley, like that is the stupidest thing I've ever said. Like dad Draw, that's so in style right now. What do you don't know what you're talking about? Like, I do know what I'm talking about. I think that looks stupid, I'm sorry. I know what I'm talking about. I think it looks stupid and for me it does, so I'm sorry about the people of it. That's the way, it is okay. And having the courage to do that right to say you know, I'm sorry, just in my cup of tea. So right, and that's okay. There has to be room for different cups of tea. If there isn't, then why are we bothering? So so then you end up making this transformation you have.
Speaker 2:This is really horrible, crucible thing. I mean, breast cancer is an awful thing for any woman to have to deal with, you know, and I mean cancer in general, but of course is a problem. But there there are particular trials, I think, with breast cancer and there that I can't speak personally to, but it seems like there's a kind of a special or use a unique experience. Did you? Did you find, as you were going through that, that you were trying to be this is how you're gonna feel and you need to feel this way, and now this is what you have to deal with? Or were you like no, no, I'm, I'm not going down that path. I've got my own pathway here and I'm sticking to it. And how did you do that?
Speaker 3:I had someone close to me saying why aren't you scared, why aren't you depressed? I'm sorry for you to say, is that what I want me to feel? And so I think is weird thing. I'm like, no, I'm actually having. If I can find my divine alignment and grace in something like this, shouldn't you celebrate that, shouldn't you? And be like, wow, she's, he's got it? It's sometimes.
Speaker 2:what I've discovered is that people need you to feel weak so they can feel strong yeah, yeah, I can see Well there, envious of the fact that you are able to stay strong, right? I mean that that makes them feel weak then. That they were not able to do that or this doesn't make sense. How can you not do that?
Speaker 3:everyone does this, right, so see the thing, comparison is the thief of joy and I believe that. But I'm not comparing myself to anyone's experience. It's my experience. And for those people who had the privilege, to you know, walk that that length of that path with me and to turn around and say things like why aren't you like sad, like I am sad, I'm just handling my sadness. And design, I'm designing spaces, I'm redesigning my apartment, like that's what gets me, like I needed a bone to chew. That was how I expressed that right. So I will to channel my my sadness. Like some people work out, I couldn't work out. Like I worked out every day and I couldn't. I wasn't allowed to work out for for a couple of years there, which is really tough.
Speaker 3:And back to something that's really important for me to mention row, cancer changes your self perception can. Cancer changes your appearance, right. And if we're living in a society that judges our self worth Based on how we look, right, speaking a project runway, I mean life is a runway, right. Life is a way of like oh well, she's looking bad. Well, she's never gonna look that good again, right.
Speaker 3:And what if I can come back stronger and better than even before cancer? What if I look back at pictures, my camera recognizes me as three different women. You know I phone has like the facial recognition. It has me separated from the woman I was before cancer, the woman I was during cancer and now the woman I am now. Can you believe it?
Speaker 3:It's crazy so that speak to that level of transformation and it's really important to recognize and this is a huge part of what I do beauty is healing and the kind of beauty I'm speaking about it's not skinny, it's not about how we look, it's about how we feel. Okay, it's divine grace. Beauty is our birth right. It is rooted in our divinity. It's rooted in us. I'm a quantum level. Speaking of beauty from a quantum level, that is cellular alignment, cellular harmony, resonance with your, with your truth, with your people that you love in your home. That is the true beauty. And how can I create beauty on a cellular level so that I can heal and come back stronger? I look better than before? Those were the kinds of things that I was channeling.
Speaker 2:Why it was so beautiful about it to is here you are, in the midst of a very dark portion of any person's life, to be fighting a life threatening disease that you know what. Twenty, thirty years ago, the prognosis would have been well nice, knowing you and to face it with a creative spirit to face it with, which is usually. I think the only combat against darkness is light. I mean, you can't, you can sit around in darkness and complain about how dark things are, but, for goodness sakes, we found a way to make fire and ever since then we found security in light. So find light.
Speaker 2:And I don't know as an artist myself, I don't know of a better way To find light than to engage your creative self, because it's always enlightening to do that. So, if you may not have, you know out in the world, but it is enlightening to us personally to choose to use that tool, that that inner, inner light, to change and cast a different light to the world around us. Right, including the people that are saying why are you sad? Well, because I'm choosing a way of life instead of a way of responding, you know, to life. Anyways, that's, that's what you get me thinking about. So I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:I love it. I love it and, as you are talking, by the way, again to bring back science into this, our bodies actually in mid light. We just don't have the sense of David to see it, but we are electromagnetic beings, we have light, we actually produce light, we are light beings and it's so interesting that you know I'm not sugarcoating, you know my cancer experience. I'm not saying it was all like that. You know a walk in the park and there was a lot of grief attached to it, there was a lot of sadness and there was a lot of Anger, and you know these less than pretty emotions. I just channel them. I'm not saying that I didn't have those emotions and I want to make that distinction, but that I chose to turn my straw into gold. I spun something new out of it that, again, unless we're faced with that thing, I don't know if it's going to be the same for anyone else. Once you're faced with certain challenges, it's really your choice. At the end of the day, it's your decision, and that's why I feel like it's so important to talk about and speak to mindset.
Speaker 3:Once I decided that I wasn't going to allow this to become my whole identity, that this was something I was going to use and research and investigate and figure out what I have to learn from this. How can I, how can I make this better for me? And I didn't have the answers, I didn't know that all this beauty was on the other side. But I started to listen to my energy ps roll because I hadn't been cancer before cancer. I was like cori. Cori is the name of her stephanie before she became per sepani. Per sepani was only named after she went into her darkness, after she went into her underworld. She was innocent. She was an innocent, uninitiated maiden and that was her name. Cori was the innocent part of her and I definitely recognize the part of me that was not initiated, that function from an unconscious level, and I'm able to see that.
Speaker 3:I think it's really important to recognize the parts of us that we didn't are the things that we didn't realize for ourselves. And suddenly, when something clicks and you're like, oh, this was not just me before cancer, this is before me, like me before the woke up, me before I realized, you know, that what I was living in was actually very toxic, me before I realized that I was being manipulated and abused. So it's All of these things, and I think one one thing that stops us from actually admitting that to ourselves Is our ego. We don't want to feel like we didn't know something, and I think that's crazy because I'm the first person admit I don't know about that. The older I get, the more easy it is for me to say yeah, let me, let me get back to you. Not so, I'm not so sure, yet I'm not so sure. Let me, let me figure that out, instead of like feeling like I have to come up with the answers.
Speaker 2:Well, why would you want to do that? I've never quite understood the arrogance that presumes I should know this. Why should you know that? Why, why? Why would you not instead want to admit that you don't know it and then learn it? I mean, if you didn't trust you, if you would like to know the answer, that then go learn it. But to just expect that all yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I think in social media I find so amusing is all these people are becoming experts on things and no one ever challenges to say I'm excuse me, but this guy really studied it or this woman actually does it, and that's not true.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, it's very interesting functioning from you know, I use the word and I use the word authenticity in my subtitle authenticity is being able to admit you don't know. Authenticity is being able to say yeah, I'm not sure if this is gonna work out, but I'm gonna do this anyway because it feels right right, give it a shot.
Speaker 2:so yeah, what is that? Since you know you after ten thousand tries with a different filaments, and someone asked Now, aren't you kind of ashamed that you have ten thousand things and you haven't been successful, and why? Now I know ten thousand things that absolutely won't work.
Speaker 3:so yeah, I mean, I fail so many times. It's, it's failure in a lot of ways. Has taught me, has been a very influential teacher, and you know those people who don't try it all. It's. Yeah, it's safe, but, as I write in my book, that safety is actually what's killing us.
Speaker 2:It suffocates you over time when you don't Break out right, I actually had a guest, not just a little while ago, talking about how he took his daughter to a butterfly exhibit at a local museum, I think it was, and his daughter was quite young at the time and noticed that there was this one butterfly in a chrysalis that was breaking out of the chrysalis and was really, of course, struggling just you know the effort of trying to get out of that chrysalis. It was so difficult for a butterfly. And his daughter asked him Daddy, why doesn't someone help that butterfly? And he said very wisely well, sweetheart, if the butterfly doesn't work, doesn't develop the muscles, doesn't end up having that the substances that need to be transformed into the wing or transferred into the wings, they won't survive. So it's that struggle that actually gets them to the point where they can fly and be the beautiful butterflies that we all appreciate so much.
Speaker 2:And I think we so much want to just avoid the struggle. You know, it's just like now the struggle, the struggle is icky. I don't want to feel bad. I really, when I hear people say I don't want to feel bad, I feel like how shallow are you? I mean, it's just, you know. And then the people that really drive me nuts are the. You know the Christians that I've known who have something horrible happen to them, and I get it. You know a son is killed in a horrible car accident. Awful things, awful, awful things. They become just so embittered and so nasty and so like okay, god put them up.
Speaker 2:And I think you know there is a person that never had to go through any fire, and fire is what turns gold into gold. You have to be, you know, sifting and winnowing. I mean you look, any science field you look at historically, there is always a refining process that happens to make something that was originally flawed into a more perfect form. So when we challenge, when we, as you say, I mean you're bracing that shadow side, right, the shadows are incredibly important for knowing our full dimensionality, right, a thing that is not lit in a way that shows its shadows is not three-dimensional.
Speaker 2:So I don't know. There's a lot you're getting me thinking about. So I'm sorry, this is supposed to be an interview with you, not me spouting off. So anyway, I wanted to talk about the epigenetics, because we mentioned that early on that you, you discovered through this process that there are epigenetic effects of design and emotions on health. So how do you balance that, those sort of scientific insights, with the artistic and intuitive aspects of design and creating, creating, you know, these kind of healing spaces, if you will?
Speaker 3:Thank you for that question. Let's put it in a very interesting analogy If epigenetics, if your, your genes, are the home that you have and you walk into that home and you can turn on the light switch or you don't have to right you can decide to paint it as something a different color, you can decide to cover it with toxins, but basically we have that agency with our own bodies, if your body is your home, to turn on and off those parts of us that are there. That's like the blueprint, right, that's the basic blueprint, but we have the ability to create healing for ourselves. And this is where the science gets into place in terms of really simple auditing a home. So I have a list where I look at all the things that I looked at, from my kitchen to the pots and the pans that I was eating off of, to the synthetics that you know were possibly causing all sorts of problems, and the materials that we use, the things that we inhale, that we are a living ecosystem, our porous beings. There's a communication happening between us and our environment. That's what epigenetics is.
Speaker 3:Most cancers, I would say 75%, are now discovered as a byproduct of your environment and your lifestyle. Okay, that's great news. That's actually great news because that way we have agency. We have the ability to make those changes. Now, where to start right? And that's where I started using my design background and I said, okay, let me research this. I'm a materials consultant for architectural firms. I look at things that I am constantly looking at different, new ways to do things. Why not look at it through the cancer lens and say, oh, is this good? I just want to make a distinction role. What's touted, what's marketed as good for the environment isn't necessarily good for our health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh, green design, green design, green design, oh so great. No, it's not. I'm looking at it from. Is it good for me? Is it good for you? Not just good for the environment? And speaking of quantum biology, I discovered the fact that now they're linking breast cancer especially, too, because it's a hormonal cancer to getting the wrong light at the wrong time, light that is, from your TV screen, from your iPad, from your phone, especially after nighttime, when the sun sets. Blue light is considered toxic.
Speaker 3:It's a toxin because, our body is a photoreceptor. Our whole entire body is a photoreceptor. We are photosynthesizing beings, and I'm not just talking about what's lights coming in through your eyes. Your skin is a photoreceptor and that blue light. You might wear glasses to block the blue light, but your skin is still being affected and on your body, still internalizing that blue light.
Speaker 3:So how do I design from that perspective? Oh my God, I can go down a rabbit hole. I have so many great tips for that, so many great tips for that. So that's just one aspect. Even food, the food that we eat, is so important and what most people don't realize I mean, everyone's talking about losing weight, losing weight and looking great. Well, guess what? If you ate the right things, you wouldn't have to try so hard. You would. Just Our bodies. The beautiful, divine design of our bodies is that we are always seeking to heal ourselves and we're always seeking homeostasis, and homeostasis is optimal health. So if we can help ourselves maintain that homeostasis, modern life right now is actually pushing us away from homeostasis, and that's what I love doing is speaking to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think honestly, since probably the beginning of the industrial evolution, it's been an increasingly forceful push away from homeostasis. The agrarian lifestyle was probably the last bastion of that sort of thing and even that's been totally attacked on so many levels. You also have started a whole series of workshops for cancer survivors and administrators and whatnot. That are from what I can tell. I mean after talking with you more I can't see how they couldn't be transformative. Can you give an example of how your design techniques have informed that in ways that you are sort of able to get people to turn on their light bulb without blue light of course, but turn on their yellow light bulb, and make that work for them?
Speaker 3:Sure. So the healing power of beauty and I can, there's a workshop I've done and it's been very successful is looking at your space through your five senses, right? So say, for example, you're in your bedroom, what's the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning? Okay, just simple as that. And what is your lighting like when you go to bed? Is it toxic blue light? Or you do have a TV in your bedroom. So that's like from the sense of vision, right, what you see when you wake up and what you see when you go to bed.
Speaker 3:What do you feel? What are your sheets like? What are you touching? What are you wearing against your skin? Does it feel good? Is it the right material? Is it a synthetic? Is it something that is going to be in tune with your frequency? So there's that. And then there's scent. What does your bedroom smell like? Do you let it candle? Is it something that evokes that memory, like I said about my grandmother's garden it's I love Jasmine. Do you smell that scent before you go to sleep? What is your bedtime ritual? Do you have one? Let's create one. What does that look like? You know, things like that, I think, are really important. Music sound? Are you listening to the waterfall or the ocean? Or the Twitter of birds in a? Forest.
Speaker 3:Or is it your favorite music, Like you asked me who my favorite artist is right.
Speaker 3:Am I listening to the soundtrack over a room with a view? Am I listening to opera at night? Let's set the tone. We're really we're creatures of habit. So I think it's really wonderful to create these rituals that becomes your healing sanctuary and that also, on a biological level, sets you for deep rest. Right, are you watching? Like I always tell my son, it's really important that you not watch anything violent before you go to sleep. You know anything that you watch, you can't remove that. It becomes a part of your subconscious. So be very guarded about what you allow yourself to see. He already does that normally. But, like you know, if news gets you upset, don't watch CNN before going to sleep. Like things, like simple, little things like that. To start really creating, curating your experiences at home. I mean the crooked, no high end hotels and spas know this right. They know this. When you go into a lobby and you smell that candle and it reminds you of the four seasons oh my God, it's always smells so good. Why not create the four seasons in your bedroom?
Speaker 2:What that's crazy talk. So, yeah, boy, it's interesting that you know all the stuff you're talking about and the way that you know you're lighting up as you talk about it. I suspect it's because it's all so human, human, it's all so humanizing to do that and yet our whole world these days is so dead set against people attaining that. You know, we poo-poo it, we try to otherize people that adopt that mindset. It's like there's a spiritual war against this mentality, this, you know, shaping of reality, and it makes me wonder, you know, what is going to be the light, what's going to be the click, because I would like to think that virtually everyone can make this, you know, dynamic, this quantum shift. I think we all are gifted with the capability of doing it.
Speaker 2:I just, I wish there was a way to turn it on for other people. You know that they would somehow. You know you had an on-off switch for others that you could say okay, because, like all the hate and the polarization that's going on right now, I really think we become addicted as a culture to animosity and hatred and, you know, just putting other people down so that we feel better about ourselves and conformational biases become, you know, the next greatest drug kind of. So we have to have an antidote for that, and it strikes me that art and beauty and design are that antidote. So how do we inject it? You know what's the vaccine that would do that?
Speaker 3:That's funny. You just reminded me I have a line and I wrote a line in my book is that we vaccinate ourselves against uncertainty. I think the polarization Raul comes from trying to vaccinate ourselves against a level of uncertainty. The fact that that we're trying to otherwise is causing separation, and in order to cause separation we have to otherwise. And I think that level of triangulation that's happening, whether it's political, whether it's societal, on all those levels I think. When I look at it, I'm like, hmm, so whoever's doing this is going to benefit from this conflict, right? What are the benefits and what's the benefit for?
Speaker 2:them.
Speaker 3:There's always the benefit. There's an agenda for it I mean, nothing just happens on its own. It's placed and orchestrated and then, you know, created.
Speaker 2:It's designed, yes yes, it's bad design, but it's designed so naughty design.
Speaker 3:So stepping back from that. We have the ability Number one it's reconnection with yourself. If you're disconnected from yourself, then you're going to try to use otherness to create that level of significance. If you're able to feel significant within yourself, that's the stepping stone and I think self empowerment as he has. That might sound, but what I truly mean with that is reconnecting with your shadow, reconnecting with the six year old Raoul, and being able to function from there, function from that level of innocence and wonder, right and open, open porosity. I think it's so interesting that we are porous. Biologically speaking, we're porous beings and that level of porosity should extend to our hearts too.
Speaker 2:And our minds and our spirit and our interactions with people. Porosity is a beautiful thing because water passes through porous materials and without water we can live. Without water for what? Three days? We live about food for months. You know it's just how important is water, folks.
Speaker 3:You know that there's a fourth phase of water.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:Did you know?
Speaker 2:I did not oh yeah, really yeah.
Speaker 3:The fourth phase of water is is liquid crystal, which LCD technology has already. They figured this out, so they have electrified. We share the same technologies are TVs. So we have this type of structured water within us which serves as an, as an antenna, and that's why I'm so adamant about Wi-Fi and then being able to turn down the electrical charge of things, because we're, our bodies, are being robbed of electrons from all our devices and we have to maintain a certain charge for optimal water porosity to go in and out and for nutrients to go in and out of ourselves. Sorry, I'm going down the rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:No, that that you know that I keep thinking when you're talking about that, I keep thinking Tesla. I suspect that that has something to do with what Tesla saw in his you know idiocy of geniusness, right, he just what a wonderful you know illuminated I think he actually made, makes Einstein look kind of dumb, but it which is saying something, right, but there is a Tesla was onto that same sort of thing of there being energy everywhere and just learning how to see that energy is is the next big part of the journey. You know that we're we can't even define it because it's so different from the way that we're thinking and we're we've been conditioned to think it's. It takes a whole new sensibility and you know sort of the things we're talking about there requires a sensibility as well towards you know, I can choose a way of death and darkness or I can choose a way of light and health and design. Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's an important lesson for anyone, right? So?
Speaker 3:Yes, beauty from a, from a quantum level again, is really about living in balance with your darkness, living in balance with the fact that we all will die and to live our life. And I think for me, it informs me in such a way where I make my decisions from a place of what? What have I got to lose? You know, I tell my son, you know, go and ask whatever you need. To ask that question. He's like I don't want to sound stupid and I'm like no, but like if you don't ask, then at least 50% of the answer might be yes, you might be able to get it. You might be able to try, like why not give yourself that chance, give yourself the permission to just try something? It's better to try than to not even and never know that you could have succeeded. Like what's the point, after all?
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. Stupid is not knowing the answer. Stupid is not wanting to know the answer. So, and that that's something I've tried to teach my kids, I've tried to teach other people. It's just like you're not stupid because you don't know the answer, but you will be stupid if you don't want to know the answer. So just you know. Just get that through our heads please, moesh. There's so much more to talk about. Moesh, I'm so sorry that we only have I mean, we're already at an hour here and I make my promise to my guests I won't take more than an hour because it's not fair. But I hope we can please find another time to talk again. I would love to continue the conversation because there is so much more just in your talking points that I never even got to. You have like 11 questions. I think I've got like one and a half answered, so, but oh, that's a good thing.
Speaker 3:That's a good thing because that's a sign that you know you liked and were inspired to share. You know your perspective and I value that very much.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you very much, Folks, my guest today has been Moesh Syed. Moesh is a Moesh, I'm sorry. Moesh is an author. She is a inspirer, a designer. She has written a book right A Purgatory to Paradise. This book Is that available on Amazon?
Speaker 3:Is that something that people yeah, it's on Kindle, Amazon and on Audible. If you like to listen and play it in your car or while you're cooking, you can do that too.
Speaker 2:Excellent, and if people want to find out more, you have a website right wwwclaimyourparadisecom. Yes. And what sorts of things do people find that they go there?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I have courses, I have audit lists for your home, I have design masterclasses, like my top three lessons to transform your space right here, right now. Your paradise is all about your now beauty.
Speaker 2:They can get in contact for you. I'm assuming that would be possible through there too. Yeah and no go ahead. I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:Oh, Instagram is Mahwish. Underscore Syed underscore designs.
Speaker 2:And Mahwish Syed designs on Facebook right, yes, okay, linkedin, I mean you're on all of that. I don't see TikTok anymore. Where's TikTok?
Speaker 3:I'm on TikTok too, just you know very small.
Speaker 2:I'm not on TikTok. I can't even get Instagram working. I'm like, I don't know, I just I guess I'm getting too old for some of this stuff. Maybe I'll hire some young assistant that can just go do that for me, so that would be good. So, anyways, well, thank you so much, mahwish. I really appreciate your time. It's so wonderful getting to meet you and folks. I hope you've enjoyed my conversation with Mahwish as much as I've enjoyed it, although you'd be hard pressed to do that. So, and I thank everyone for tuning in here on Frame of Reference Profiles and Leadership, and I hope we've given you another wonderful profile to think about, consider and maybe just try this way of thinking. Okay, take care, see you next week.
