052 Duality within a Refugee Camp with Inaya Oakroot - Part II

In part 2 of this episode, I sit down with Inaya Oakroot, the compassionate force behind a refugee camp in Sweden. Inaya candidly shares the challenges and barriers she faces, from bureaucratic hurdles to language and cultural differences, yet reveals the profound joys of extending a helping hand. Seamlessly weaving spirituality into the conversation, Inaya reflects on the divine duality present in her work, offering a poignant perspective on the interconnectedness of humanity. From heartwarming stories of resilience to a vision for a brighter future, this episode invites you to explore the transformative power of compassion and community in the face of adversity. 

Part 1 talks and teaches about Divine Duality within spirituality through adversity in her personal journey. Listen in to understand this concept better. 

You can find her work on:  https://www.oakrootspiritualacademy.com/

Transcript

UNKNOWN 0:00

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:02

This is part two of Inaya's episode where we talk about her work with refugee camps. She owned, managed, and run the refugee camps. And she talks about the challenges that she experienced there, but also the joys that she got from it. She talks about the experience working very, very closely with refugees around the world, the communication barriers, the cultural barriers, and how she was able to open up her world to the various different kinds of individuals in vulnerable situations. We're listening to the story I really hope you enjoy this episode. Please don't forget to subscribe. Really, really appreciate it. Thank you. We're going to delve right into the refugee camps because that's something else that when I read, I was like, wow. Were you trying to seek a certain answer when you decided to do this or were you just trying to explore something different?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah. Oh, first of all, I worked full time in university by that time as implementing entrepreneurship in the university. And my husband had a refugee camp, not a refugee camp, but a youth hostel And all those people were rushing into Sweden as refugees. And so he said, okay, I have a camp that can store 84 person. May we do it, the refugee camp? all what's needed there, all the beds, all the cupboards, different things, and sent love and painted the rooms and just sent love because I knew that I needed it. I just entered the field of this hostel. And after half a year, little more than half a year, my husband had a heart attack. And it was like a very hard degree of, it was like 95%, you know, that was lost. And so I had to take over that part of 100% in the refugee camp and working in the university at the same time. I dropped my educations that I had and left them to other people and learned them up. So then I had full time in a refugee camp. And when you are there full time, it's like, you know, three days, 24-7. And then rest. three and a half day and then again coming there and I had another working with the other part and in the other part I started to write my book and because I had so much knowledge about from the interplay with entrepreneurship and innovation and religion because there was so much about religion in this place to understand religion that I couldn't understand before I I met the Arabs. And it's also so interesting. I traveled the world so widely in so many countries and lived in different countries, but I never was in inner Africa or in any Arab country. And there they came to me. Imagine

SPEAKER_03 3:45

that. And they came to you in such a capacity, right? They're vulnerable. They're in need of your resources, your time, your love, your energy. And at the same time, when there is so much of that codependency, in a way, you're also learning a certain level of depth. So you didn't

SPEAKER_01 4:08

have to go there. Exactly. Yeah. Borders and loving borders. Yes. lots of glass windows all around. And so people were seeing those kids playing, drawing, having fun, interplaying with the other. And I was the extra mother. And it starts, you know, for the people coming, having this suffer, it's like seeing the future, the future, the hope, their hope is the children. And I could understand it properly because I have been through the dark night of the soul and I could share my story with them and they understood that I'm not someone else than them that we are I have been in their situation but in another way so it was very very it was a perfect match actually to have that camp

SPEAKER_03 5:17

tell me a little bit more about this camp what was some of the biggest challenges you faced

SPEAKER_01 5:22

well the biggest challenges was following the rules. Okay. Actually, you know, people were smoking inside and the fire alarm goes off and people were, you know, and they don't understand the borders and the love. And the love filled in it. Of course, I also had a big things between there were two Russian guys that took drugs and you know it's illegal in Sweden all drugs but they had drugs and they were so aggressive and they were Christian and they hated the Arabs and one day I had to I was called from one of the Arabs that I have to come they have called the police but one of the Russian guys eyes have, you know, kicked one of the door windows, you know, that had these sharp glasses and was running around and trying to kill people. So I came there in a short time. I came before the policemen and I made, you know, some paradox because the paradox was needed. First I came and people got more silent because they all had some kind of, you know, respect for me. Also the Russian guys. So when I came, they were stopped. And I start to accuse the Arabs because I know they were the other. So it was quite the other. So I start to say, what are you doing? You are mob. You are 50 people here. And they are only two. And I was like, and they have blood on their hands. They're Russian guys, you know. Because they had their glasses. The glass, parts of the glasses And I said, so, yeah, I asked her, what happened here? And she said, yeah, we don't feel safe here, the Russian guys say. And I said, okay, come with me to the reception. I took them to the reception, and all the others outside the field, they would kill me. And the policemen came into the place, and after some time, they realized they have to take those guys away. from the camp and to send them to two different places in other places in Sweden. That was the worst time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Really some aggression happening there, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There were also, but often there were more stillness. And what made the stillness is the family feeling that we created from the start. Because when new people, always people were coming and going, about 14 nationalities with their different worldview and religions. But always when there came new people, when people left that came new, and when new people came, the one who stayed there came and helped them with their luggage because they wanted to have this kind of home place. It was their only home. So everyone was kind of keen on helping the state of harmony as much as it could in the place yeah

SPEAKER_03 8:58

yeah it's it's fascinating because they really come from you know a place of very adversity you know they've they've probably taken a lot of hardship to even get there in the first place but at the same time like even though there's a lot of trauma behind they're also very appreciative that there is someone who's providing them a place to stay and giving them a lifestyle and so you know it's again that that dualism right where on one hand it's this is how I feel I'm angry. I'm frustrated. I'm going through my trauma. And on the other hand, it's, but I'm here and I'm safe and I'm protected and I appreciate it. And so, you know, kind of balancing the two. And then again, there is a miscommunication because of the language barriers, the lack of understanding. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

One thing is so good because there were really language barriers. My English is not perfect, but they were often doesn't have any of it. Some of them had it. they were like yeah you know the one that came to help the others but what I what it made is that I had really to meet them by the heart and listen carefully and we so we met each other by heart before our brain and we wouldn't if we had the same language and you know they always had to come to me for calling for you know dentist or paying a bill for something or because they need my help. So we always had this interconnection by heart because it was the main language that we could use.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

That's so true. No, that's really amazing, honestly. I can't imagine, you probably also saw a lot of pain. You probably also delved very deep into a lot of their personal family traumas, having to know and help them processing papers and documents to be able to lived there also required you to know a little bit about their background. Many of them coming from war-ridden backgrounds. What were their backgrounds mostly like?

SPEAKER_01 11:05

First of all, migration had all the texts about them. It's not for me to read them. So I had their own stories. I'm not interplaying with the decisions or anything about their staying. And that was good. But well, most of them came from the war in Syria and in Eritrea. But there were also people from, at that time, from Ukraine, and the government said, no, there's no war there, but they came. But there were also people from Albania and from lots of states that wasn't able to stay because those didn't have the acute need that the others had so the most of them came from the war and most of them had still families still there in their country and so the biggest thing was to help them stay in a condition that they could hold themselves when their family had this place And they don't get the decision this week to be able to stay and to bring their family and not next week. And, you know, all this waiting and hearing about what's happening on the news.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Can you tell me some of the stories that you'd heard that really stood out to you?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, one of them that many of them had is, you know, the travel over with a boat, small boats. in the rough waters. And no one of them could swim. They didn't know how to swim. So these travel over are so traumatizing. And the people from Iran that came through walking with the guides over the mountains days. And when one of the ones that wanted to escape wasn't able any longer the one that took them over killed them because they will not make any they will not make any trace after them and then they were taken into small cars over each other over the borders and hopefully will not be caught they had so So I think the travel over to come to Sweden was the worst ever.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

It's so crazy to think that we still have a world where people are still going through this every day. Yeah. Every day.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

And then we see, you know, if they wanted to buy an airplane ticket, as we can have an airplane ticket for nothing. But for them, they cost like over$100 because they are so corrupted

SPEAKER_02 14:25

everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Yeah.

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SPEAKER_03 16:04

What were some of the resources that you found difficult to sort of provide or cater for them?

SPEAKER_01 16:34

arms that the politicians said that we will have. First of all, we didn't have apartments to everyone, of course. The building industry should start at once, but it started when everyone was there not having any place to stay in. And everything was delayed. And what still is that Swedish people, we live in a cold country and we don't have this family life that most of that America has a big family life and I guess most many many many countries but this Scandinavian life is more individual and so we didn't don't have those places if we have lots of interest always we have lots of interest to get more knowledge about things and we have you know Our kids are brought to different activities every day, but we don't have these arenas where family meet each other. So we don't have the natural places for integration. We are so different in our mentality. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

What about in terms of when they were transitioning out and have got their documentation to be able to live there, then it's about integrating into life in Sweden. Getting jobs, enrolling in schools, getting houses, just getting on with life. That also must be extremely difficult for them.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Yes. And also, many of the women were kept in the houses still. Because in the country, they had this family life and everyone was taking care of the kids together. the women were there and had their inner society that wasn't including men and the men had their society and not included women so it's also when they came to Sweden the women were so much more isolated than they were before in their country because they could be only at their home and they had lots of people being with and having life together with and now they were just alone And their religion maybe sometimes didn't want them to come out in the society. So it's also some big problem, a big gap to want to learn Swedish and to want to go out into the society.

SPEAKER_03 19:24

No, that's so true. I mean, because again, religion is such a massive part of this as well. And their religion is their lifestyle. And so it dictates what they wear, whether they can, you know, be educated, get jobs. Probably many of them were not even educated, the women. And so let alone learning Swedish, they didn't have the qualifications necessary, especially in Sweden where you have to be qualified to get a good job. You know, everyone there is extremely.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And in Sweden, you know, we have so many people out of job that have so much education. So it's, I don't know how we should start because our young people they have hard to get jobs even people who know Swedish who knows English who had an education so that's again about the divine duality because actually I don't believe that I believe that this all came and I wrote about it in my first book this creative existence unfolding a new conscious world about this this like collapse of the society it's the new start of another way of using duality and it's created duality has come to its outmost outer part and will come it will just transcend because it has to and it will be lots of chaos but it will be so much a wonder and if we focus on the wonder of of life. There's always a path. I'm really a person that can see it from my life of how I live. There's always a path. I can't understand how all this life has cordoned just some years around me from living in zero with a hidden address. We all just have to start to live in wonder of life, the wonder of life, and to surrender to the reality and not fight against it and start to embody what we love and every step will take us into our journey

SPEAKER_03 21:45

yeah no I love this because it's actually reminding me of some episodes that I've done before with energy healers and they don't exactly explain it in this way but a lot of the stuff they say is very synonymous with what you're saying right now how they describe it is listening to your gut just listening to that inner voice not Yeah, absolutely. listen to the spirit guides that are around you that are dropping you little little clues

SPEAKER_01 22:39

right yes and that's uh so true and because we have so many have stopped to look look inside and ask to listen inside it's it's not so easy to start to say uh just listen to your gut because our gut in the start maybe is just the the fear or you know we have we have to to sort out what is it that my inner wants to tell me so there are so many filters around us that we bit by bit need to heal to come to see what is our subconscious, our shadow coming up and what is the clear voice from our higher self so that's why it's so as we talked about before to open the skills of our sensory system and our body so even though we are totally feeling that I don't know who I am we can start with working with neuroplasticity you know the very slow things to really come to the deep sensations inside and we can start to re-evolve ourselves with doing some dance is such a moment that is so wonderful and tennis of course because it's all this dance including the strategy it's both so if you just start to make something that out there that is not only sitting and viewing and not bombard yourself with information from outside but start to shed the inner knowing you will get so much easier coming through all of this happening now in the chaos in the world.

SPEAKER_03 24:39

Right. I love that. Can you give our listeners some practical steps that we can do? You have talked a little bit about that. Say on a day-to-day basis, if I say today, I want to start doing this, what do I need to do to get there?

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Oh, yeah. Okay. I can take one. One would be just start to make a journal and journal and in the journal you will just write when you do something automatic. If you're doing something like why am I choosing those clothes? So you ask yourself and then you can answer because they are proper for my job. Why do I want to be proper for my job? Because I want to be well seen. Why do I want to be that because I want people to listen to me.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

Inaya, thank you so much for sharing such beautiful insight and such practical tools as well on this. Listeners, I'll put in some contact details there on the description as well for anyone that might be interested in going through some healing with Inaya and if you want to know more about this, please do contact her. I know I will. So yes, I hope you guys have all learned something. Thank you so much again.

SPEAKER_01 26:08

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

If you enjoyed the episode and would like to help support the show, please follow and subscribe. You can rate and review your feedback on any of our platforms listed in the description. I'd like to recognize our guests who are vulnerable and open to share their life experiences with us. Thank you for showing us we are human. Also, a thank you to our team who I'm Jennifer, host and writer of the show, and you're listening to Multispective.

UNKNOWN 26:48

Multispective.