Talking Across Difference: Islamic and Jewish Experiences in the (Counselling) World—Myira Khan and Mick Cooper in Dialogue, with Nicola Blunden

What are the intersections of faith, culture and counselling? Myira Khan and Mick Cooper—with Nicola Blunden as Chair—explore our personal identities as a Muslim woman and Jewish man, and how this intersects with our professional training and identities. Through open dialogue, we discuss how global events shape our clinical practice and the unique perspectives we bring to the therapeutic space and training by our faith and cultural identities. We also talk about the prejudices and microaggressions we have faced in the counselling and professional world beyond.

How does identity impact on professional life? Myira and Mick reveal the weight of representation and the complexities of navigating professional spaces with unique cultural and faith perspectives. We share personal accounts of the delicate balance between being voices for our communities and individual expression. We confront the invisible struggles and stereotypes faced in interfaith spaces, and emphasize the importance of privilege awareness and proactive steps to dismantle harmful biases.

In this thought-provoking episode, we culminate with rich discussions about the personal significance of religious attire, such as Myira's choice to wear the hijab, and the judgments faced by individuals. Our exchange underlines the importance of compassion and open communication in training and counselling services. Join us to understand the emotional and mental challenges practitioners face to celebrate the value of community and support among peers across different faiths and cultures, and the profound impact on existence and belonging.

This Podcast is sponsored by Onlinevents 

Transcript

Nicola Blunden: 0:00

Hello. So I'm Nicola Blundin. I'm a therapist counsellor based in South Wales, teaching Bristol, and I'm here to facilitate a conversation between Maya Rakan and Meg Cooper about your experiences in the counselling world, and we're focusing particularly on the experience of being a Muslim person, a Jewish person and thinking about your kind of lived experience of that. And I'm hoping to provide some kind of facilitation so that there's someone asking questions, someone being curious. I'm a white woman, working class woman, kind of aware that I come in as a white person into the discussion, just wanting to make space for both of you. Welcome to listeners in this conversation and perhaps I'll just hand over to you, maya Rakan and Meg, to talk about, introduce yourselves for a minute or so and then we'll go into the conversation.

Myira Khan: 1:04

Myira Khan- yeah, thanks, nicola. Yeah, so I'm Myira Khan. I'm a accredited counsellor supervisor and I also deliver training on workshops specifically or specialising in anti-oppressive practice. I think in terms of an introduction that's kind of me professionally. But I think what also comes with that professionally is also visibly aspects of Maya's entity as well, as I'm visibly a Muslim woman. I wear the hijab. I have founded and I run, I'm the CEO of the MCAPN, the Muslim Council. It's like a therapist network. But I'm very much here today in the position as an individual practitioner. What I'm going to be sharing today or thinking about together in dialogue with yourself, nicola and Meg, is very much kind of my individual experience. So nothing I say here is representative of the network or of members generally. Thank you, Myira Khan.

Nicola Blunden: 2:00

Thanks.

Mick Cooper: 2:02

Yeah, so my name's Mick Cooper. I'm a professor of counselling psychology at the University of Rhyampton in London and a practicing psychologist and psychotherapy researcher. I guess for me, I came to this dialogue, I thought about it a long time. I identify as Jewish. I'm not religious, but I identify very much as Jewish and culturally Jewish, and maybe that's something we want to talk about.

Mick Cooper: 2:36

And seeing what was happening in Israel and Palestine and Palestinian territories, and being horrified by the violence and the destructiveness there in both ways both the initial attack and then also the violence of the Israeli response and I think for me I spent a long time thinking about how is it possible to have a dialogue and talk about it from Jewish to Islam, from Jewish to Muslim perspectives, to try and begin some dialogue Just about the difference.

Mick Cooper: 3:23

Obviously it's not a complete dialogue but just something that could open some communication in a way that I know does happen. But also, I guess I felt like I wanted to see where I could say that and Maya is something I know and have enormous respect for in a professional field and felt like somebody I wanted to reach out to see if she would be interested in having this dialogue, to explore some of these issues and we talked about, particularly maybe in the counseling field. I'm not a kind of political expert in any way or kind of expert on world affairs, but I think, speaking personally and to have a dialogue which was about us talking personally about what it meant to be being Jewish, what it meant to be being Muslim, what that meant to our mental well-being and our psychological functioning, to maybe enhance that understanding. Obviously, as Maury saying, I'm not speaking for all Jews. I'm very much a secular, progressive Jew. I feel very different from Netanyahu and much more right-wing perspectives. It feels very alien to me, but I do feel very Jewish.

Nicola Blunden: 4:42

Yeah, thank you. So I suppose yeah. So that brings us to maybe the background to this conversation and maybe what you would both want to come from this conversation and why you're having this conversation. I guess and I'm thinking about that in terms of maybe more widely like, what might this conversation be able to contribute or do or offer? But also maybe personally, what you would like to come from the conversation or something that is going to be helpful to you in some way or interesting. And then perhaps I'll ask you, maura, yeah, great question.

Myira Khan: 5:30

I think I want to start by saying for me, I think this is about intention, and I think I can really resonate with what Mick says about wanting to have this dialogue, because I feel like, as a Muslim practitioner, as a visible Muslim practitioner in the field, I suppose I'm looking at this from two perspectives.

Myira Khan: 5:48

I think one is.

Myira Khan: 5:50

So my intention is basically kind of a two-fold.

Myira Khan: 5:52

I think one is that we're actually being open about our experiences in the profession at a time when we are watching, we are witnessing such trauma, destruction, violence, and it is a genocide.

Myira Khan: 6:09

So I think for me, one of my two intentions is to be able to have that open conversation about, as practitioners, what is that experience and what is that impact, so not only on us as individual practitioners, but also perhaps on our clinical practice and what does it mean to be supporting clients that are also bringing this into our clinical rooms as well. And I think my second intention and I think this very much again resonates with what Mick was saying I think in having this dialogue, it's about being able to have that conversation across the face rather than a conversation happening within each of our own faith communities, where actually I think this kind of interfaith dialogue, from a place of openness and authenticity and vulnerability, I think is really needed as well to be able to share what our experiences have been and are and our experiences continue to be, but in a way actually that feels kind of co-productive and collaborative.

Nicola Blunden: 7:13

Yeah, so partly in response to world events, but your personal response to that, the impact on you, the impact on your work and your clients, and doing that in a dialogical way, in a way that's kind of in relationship, and I guess you getting out of that kind of an opportunity to reflect on, on your experience and have this dialogue across faiths or across identity.

Myira Khan: 7:42

Yeah, absolutely, and I think it's really important to acknowledge and I'm sure this will come up in our dialogue but at a time where politics in the political field is so divisive, I think there's also something here about within the profession itself. The profession can start to feel divisive as well, and when there are calls for organizations or professional bodies that are either doing something or not doing something, when they get called out as being anti-Semitic or then it's an apophobic and it's like that's what those things are kind of happening, I think it's really important again that we actually take time to actually think about what that's actually about and not to get pulled into these kinds of polarity positions, but rather kind of again finding place for commonality and finding a position to go actually. Can we talk through what's actually happening in the field right now?

Nicola Blunden: 8:38

Thank you, myra, mick, if I, can ask you the same thing, what your hopes are or your intentions are.

Mick Cooper: 8:46

It's so interesting to hear what Myra is saying.

Mick Cooper: 8:50

I think for me, one of it is just to understand more about the Muslim experience and how it is to be a Muslim in the world and in the counseling world.

Mick Cooper: 8:59

I think I know I realize, going into this that my understanding is pretty limited and I'd like to understand more about that and, I think, some of the nuances about that and then how that, I guess how that then relates to the Jewish.

Mick Cooper: 9:19

There's things about being Jewish that I'd like to share and talk about and be trying to be open and transparent about that, because I think sometimes that isn't totally understood.

Mick Cooper: 9:29

So I guess there's something about sharing and again, some of the nuances of that and what it means to be Jewish, and then also to explore some of the projections and the counter projections, some of the assumptions or not assumptions, and then how that between Muslims, jews, how that gets kind of mixed up, and maybe to untangle some of that I think maybe that's a good way of putting it actually is to untangle some of that, as Ma'ru is talking about, so that we can be clear about how we relate to each other and find ways of relating that are kind of more productive. I guess I believe very deeply that we're all fundamentally human, that culture is really important, but we are all fundamentally human with the same needs and the same wants to find ways of thriving. And I think, coming, I guess, from a humanistic place, I think people, basically intentions, are good, but it can get very messed up and what starts off as good can end up being incredibly destructive.

Nicola Blunden: 10:38

I was thinking, as you were talking about that, about kind of the human meeting and disentangling kind of maybe the human, the kind of deeper existential meeting or human meeting, and then disentangling that from the stories, the cultural stories that kind of we're bound up in and we bind each other up in, and it made me think about the place of faith in this as well, or a humanistic perspective or a faith perspective, and how that might be different and similar to cultural identity as well. So that might be something that we come back to. But is there, before we kind of get into that experience, your individual experiences, is there something that you both, I mean, what would you need or want from me and from each other to have a good conversation? What would be helpful to be able to get into that disentangling?

Myira Khan: 11:38

I think for me, the biggest aspect of this, I think, is that openness and I always go back to that principle of two truths. You know, when you're in conversation with somebody, it's the ability to sit with, kind of being able to hold your own truth, what simultaneously being able to hold somebody else's truth and I think I already know that we're going to do that because obviously I've kind of, you know, having worked with both of you before and knowing both of you, that's something that I think you both always offer anyway, and I think that's something that I think that's kind of even more needed, because I think, actually I suppose that's exactly what we're talking about today is what are our truths and how can we then think about our truths and hold them all equally respectfully and equally of value?

Nicola Blunden: 12:34

Yeah, yeah.

Mick Cooper: 12:36

That's so well put, myra. And yeah, I think something about that openness, that transparency and I think, nicola, you're support for that and questions and inquiry, but also kind of the holding and the care that you know we're opening up quite vulnerable areas and I want to speak from a place of vulnerability, but that's also scary.

Nicola Blunden: 13:01

Yeah, yeah, and of course we're aware the whole time that this isn't just a private conversation, so there's always like the feeling actually of how it, how of the listener right, and how the listener might, might receive this. Maybe there's something about asking the listener to hold that openness about truth as well, that it's that you're speaking to your truth from a kind of a vulnerable place, and to hold that in some care as well, as the listener is listening, would be really helpful. Okay, so perhaps should we start then by talking about so, mick, you said one of the big things you were curious about was Myra's experience as a Muslim woman. I wonder if that would be a way in to the conversation, if you're happy with that, myra. So, like, what's your experience of being a Muslim woman in the counseling community at this time? You know, in this kind of that's happening?

Myira Khan: 13:53

Yeah, I think the word that keeps kind of going around in my head is this word representation. And the reason that word is kind of like floating around my head I think it's for a number of reasons, because I think when you represent, or when I represent, or when anybody represents a particular marginalized or minoritized community, I think representation becomes quite a big, heavy, pressurized, burdensome word or concept. And so, in thinking about my experience, the reason I think the word representation comes to mind is because my very first experience in entering the profession which is now scary thought, but it's like 14, almost 15 years ago, when I started my training, I did not see or come across a single other Muslim practitioner. And and I suppose the reason I start there is because I think where that, where I was and how I experienced that, like 14, 15 years ago, to where, to how I now feel about that, it's like it's such a big divide between the two. I feel like it's been such a journey. So, and I always start with that experience, because for me, that experience of being the only person of color, by the time I got to my final year on my training course, there was no person of color who was on the tutor team, there was no person of color who was in the placement that I was in for three years, what I was training there was no person of color who was a qualified counselor working in the placement either. So for me, being a Muslim practitioner, my experience was oh, I'm the only one, and where are the other Muslim practitioners? And and so all of a sudden this, this feeling of representation, it's I've kind of a relationship with that concept of representation from the moment I started my training, because from the get go I'm represented as the only Muslim on my course to them, being the only Muslim, and then becoming the only person of color on my course and then in my place, and then it wasn't there in, as I said, in the tutor team, the teaching team or in the qualified counselors.

Myira Khan: 16:25

So for me representation comes from being the only to now, kind of 14, 15 years on, it means something else to me. My experience now is, as a Muslim practitioner in the field, my, I don't. I wouldn't say I automatically become the person who represents, but I think I get positioned like that a lot of the time and obviously that is is going to be reinforced by my position of having founded and running the MCAP and the Muslim Council network. But I think for me it becomes a lot more nuanced than that. It's not just a case of I'm here representing Muslim practitioners if I'm in any particular professional space. I think it's also about me having to navigate that position or assumption or projection, like I'm having to be really explicit like I did in my introduction. Am I here representing a Muslim network? Am I here representing a Muslim community? Am I here representing Muslim practitioners or am I here representing myself?

Myira Khan: 17:34

And I think that responsibility alone me, the very fact that I'm having to be conscious and explicit and intentional about whether I'm representing myself or representing a Muslim community, I think is is absolutely kind of reflective of the fact that that's my experience as a Muslim woman. Is there any space I go into? I automatically, by default, become this representation, and I think that, and I think there are advantages and disadvantages to that. I think there are advantages around just being representative and having a voice in the room and in that space. But the disadvantage then is that where does representation stop and my restarts does that make sense? It's a bit like at what points will I go? Actually, I can just speak for myself and or where am I speaking on behalf of a community? So I can't be individual or share personal experiences, but that's why I'm so conscious today that I'm here as my right. I'm not here as a representation of my network or of Muslim practitioners generally, or of a Muslim community.

Mick Cooper: 18:47

Can I? It's so evocative what you're saying, but I just really want to understand a bit more, like just going back 15 years to when you're talking about being the only Muslim on the training course and what you're describing is something about feeling a pressure to represent. Or can you say a little bit more about what that, what I was like and what that means and how that was for you?

Myira Khan: 19:14

I think at that time I didn't feel the pressure to represent as in actually proactively represent by speaking up or doing anything, but I think, just physically in the room I was a representation of being Muslim, being from a technically minoritised background, being a brown woman. So I think representation 15 years ago was physically being in the room and physically representing a community, a marginalized community. What I felt more of then, what I felt more then and less now is, I think, because I was then the only one in these spaces. In those spaces is, rather than representation, I was really sat with the sense of do I belong in those spaces? So representation was there, but more like a secondary background issue For me. What I felt so much more viscerally and so much more relationally was oh, do I belong in these spaces? Am I being understood? Am I?

Myira Khan: 20:20

I always felt kind of, I felt a great weight of judgment of am I going to be good enough? Will this woman in a hijab, who comes from a marginalized background, community, ethnically, racially, from a faith minoritised community, the fact that I had all of these oppressed kind of identities. I felt more pressure to feel like I really had to kind of step up. So for me. It came from a feeling of I don't know if I belong in this profession. I don't know if there is space for me. I don't know if I'm going to be taken seriously. I don't know if I'm ever going to be seen as as good as next to white colleagues or to non-Muslim colleagues, people that were not visibly Muslim. So I very much had to question whether this profession was swimming, whether I belonged in it or not.

Mick Cooper: 21:13

I think from what I've heard from other people from marginalized groups, that is often the experience. Do I belong in my part of this training? What was the? It's okay to ask. What kind of response did you get? What was the context? Was that supported? Did you feel the trainers and other colleagues understood that? Did you feel that it was ignored?

Myira Khan: 21:37

It was never acknowledged.

Myira Khan: 21:39

At no point did a tutor or a counselor in the team that I was in placement with no one acknowledged what's that like for you to be brown, to be ethnically minoritized, to be the only Muslim.

Myira Khan: 21:57

It was never acknowledged and interestingly I write about this in my kind of intro to my book that experience of them being the only, as well as how working or how working with diversity, was taught. Because I think that has fundamentally shaped an influence then why I do what I do in the profession as white set up the network. It's why I teach diversity, it's why I teach anti-oppressive practice, because my direct experience of being Muslim in the field was I then was not being acknowledged, my identity was not being acknowledged. I was not being acknowledged by what I could bring to the profession or what I could bring to each client. I worked with the culture, the lived experience, the understanding of my faith, the other faiths of other cultures. None of it was ever acknowledged. I was almost, I think that way treated no differently to every other student in my cohort, where then every student then was taught or treated with that level of neutrality, If that makes sense, like nothing around faith or race was really acknowledged, but to anybody.

Mick Cooper: 23:10

What would have been helpful for you at that time.

Myira Khan: 23:15

I think, first and foremost, I think, an acknowledgement of each of our identities, and that includes all students, but all tutors. When I was on placement and I was having in-house supervision in my placement as well, they're being kind of for me, the first step being that acknowledgement of who we are as individuals in our unique intersectional identities. But when none of that is spoken about, how can we possibly start to get more nuanced and to have a better understanding of how our identity impacts the work or impacts our relationships? If tutors are saying we don't need to think about it, as a student I'm probably sat there going well, I therefore don't need to think about it. I think there's something about to me. This takes me to a point of as trainers, as tutors, as people that run counselling services, especially when we offer student placements. We have a huge responsibility then to bring into the space and to acknowledge and be invitational in the space of people's identities, because we're modelling something, and I guess what it comes down to is it just was never modelled on my training.

Mick Cooper: 24:27

And there's something you're describing there that I've found quite powerful about. Also your kind of knowledge and your expertise was lost because you didn't recognise that actually you brought all this richness from your culture that for all clients, but particularly groups of clients, could be really important, and that just wasn't. That was lost.

Myira Khan: 24:49

Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. I think there's something here about when it doesn't get acknowledged. I think there's something about almost like a very simple equation. It's like not acknowledging or unacknowledged equals unimportant or insignificant. I think that's kind of at the very basic level, a very general, simplified level. I think that's what's happening in the profession, that if we're not acknowledging something, we are saying that it's unimportant, insignificant.

Mick Cooper: 25:22

Do you feel there needs to be? I guess somebody might argue, but you could have talked about that if you'd wanted to, but there's something about that need for an invitation isn't there. I guess as a trainee it's not easy just to put those things out there.

Myira Khan: 25:38

Yeah, it's really hard to look back and go because obviously I'm a different person now. So now of course, I'm absolutely going right, we need to talk about this. But at the time there's something about if the tutors, in their positions of power, are not creating the space for it, students then are going to find it really hard, and I found it then really hard to then create space for it, because we are at in that respect to students. We're at the mercy of the curriculum and the timetable and what the tutors' agendas are what they have to do in that session. So it was incredible At the time it felt like things are not being acknowledged here that I'm just sat there really just completely befuddled by going. I just didn't understand. It was just so confusing for me. It's like I don't understand why this isn't being spoken about.

Nicola Blunden: 26:29

Yeah, sorry to jump in, but it's really making me think about how you're kind of. One of the things that you talk about Myra is like what am I to you, right, who am I to you? And I was thinking about how you're kind of forced into this position from the outset of being the Muslim woman. And where's Myra? Because Myra is the Muslim woman in the room. But at the same time, your identity as a Muslim woman isn't brought into the space. So you're kind of you're kind of you're neither Myra nor the Muslim woman. In some ways you just relate it to as as just a representative rather than as a person with something rich and important, valuable to offer. And how invisible in some ways that you become in that, in that positioning.

Myira Khan: 27:14

Yeah, absolutely. There's something about my identity gets kind of concentrated down to or minimized down to yes, I'm Muslim, I'm in the room, but it absolutely then becomes the elephant in the room as well. It's like it's there but it's not spoken about.

Nicola Blunden: 27:29

Yeah, what could the tutor have said? I'm thinking practically what would be, because I think one of the concerns maybe that tutors have is not wanting to spotlight a student that might feel uncomfortable with being spotlit, not wanting to position someone as the only person of color and having to speak to that, because that can also be a really unfair burden on a student, just in practical terms for people listening. How would you, what would you say? How would you raise that in a way that is non-pressing?

Myira Khan: 28:07

Yeah, I think for me this is about these conversations, conversations about inviting people to share their identities and to share their experience of being in the group. It's part and parcel of what, where and how training actually needs to evolve and develop. It's why I'm so passionate about teaching diversity and identity in a way that's embedded in the curriculum. The conversation to go I think I was speaking to a tutor just the other week, actually about I gave, so this is a very specific practical example here. Then I said when students come week one, session one, and you want to go around the room and do introductions, why don't you invite people to, yes, introduce themselves, but get them to say their name, offer ways of supporting people to pronounce their name properly and that might be phonetically right on the blackboard or whiteboard, but also then share the narrative and story behind their name. Because by people that say because for me, that's about them inviting your identity into the room, because we are so relate, we are so connected to our names, because we might introduce ourselves as our formal name. It might be a nickname, it might be shortened version, whatever it might be. What we're starting to do is invite our identity into the room, invite our narrative and lived experience in the room, and if that's week one, can you imagine at the beginning of your training you're being valued and honored for who you are straight away. That, for me, just sets the groundwork to then have conversations about bringing in the rest of your identity. So when we then come to do the modules or the particular terms, whatever it might be in your timetables I'm thinking about identity, different aspects of identity students then are already present. So for me it's not even about jumping into wrong. Your identities are in the room.

Myira Khan: 30:11

It's set out from week one by inviting people to be their individual selves in the room first. If there had been an invitation to go, myra, tell us about. How do you pronounce your name? Because I know the spelling of my name can confuse people. The I in the middle is silent, but what's the story behind it? How did you get named that way? How did the spelling come about? All of a sudden, then, what I'm sharing is part of my culture, part of my family dynamics, part of my lived experience, and I think that's just a beautiful way to allow people to be in a very containing teaching environment that values the individuals that are in the room rather than as being just representative of visible communities.

Nicola Blunden: 30:57

It's beautiful, Myra. Thank you. It's a really, really helpful way to begin, isn't it? So I'm wondering, Mick, kind of maybe what you're sitting within response, but maybe what's been different or the same as a tuition experience.

Mick Cooper: 31:13

Yeah, and one of the things where Myra and I first started having this conversation was realizing that there's similarities and there's real differences and that's where so much of the nuances come in. So I think the thing about my experience as a Jewish person in training it certainly wasn't ever talked about, there certainly wasn't ever any space in the way that Myra is saying. And if there'd been an exercise like that to introduce my name, I could have talked about my grandfather and the kind of Ukrainian and kind of Polish and German Jewish heritage that I have probably would have talked about losing family members in the Holocaust and that kind of culture of the shtetl in East Europe. So it would have been a really good introduction to that. And I think probably in my training I did talk a bit about it, about being Jewish, you know, in PD groups and things, but it was never really kind of addressed. I think being I mean, I very much identify as white and I think there's real differences in what Myra is talking about. In that Myra you saying about being visibly different and I think you know for me people my name is Jewish. I put it on my Facebook but people wouldn't necessarily identify me as Jewish, which means that there's a different journey. It's a different journey, you know, there's something about it's not spoken. There's the same kind of not spokenness. There's the same kind of not the opportunity to really immerse and evolve what that means and what it what it's like to be Jewish in the world, in in the community. But there's also a privilege, I think, as a whiteness, that I can pass, and I do generally pass as part of the white kind of community that doesn't have to kind of explain itself and it, and so I didn't have that experience of feeling a kind of I'm the only one here.

Mick Cooper: 33:20

Quite in the same way, I think there was something about, there's something about that Jewishness for me is it is about difference and I do feel different from kind of why. I mean my kids talk about the normies, which I don't really like, but there's a sense of being different from the normies in the sense that I don't feel English, I do feel from a different background, I do feel from a different world of how things were done. So I don't feel like I quite fit in, but I can slip into that and I don't have to face other people seeing me as different, which I think makes makes a big difference, but I think there is. There is kind of a downside to that. I mean, it's not of a similar magnitude, but I think there's something about being Jewish that means that people can make, or there's, an anxiety around, anti Semitism, the people I mean I've been in professional environments where people have made anti Semitic comments and they just wouldn't know that I was Jewish, so it just passes because you know it's just. You know, yeah, it passes.

Mick Cooper: 34:39

And I think, and I think as a Jewish person, then one of the things I carry is a constant anxiety about anti Semitism and it's like a kind of open wound. There's a caution and I'm really aware that, like when I'm around Jewish people or people who you know, not religiously Jewish, but people who are culturally Jewish, there's my blood pressure goes down like two or three, whatever points. There's just something that relaxes that I don't feel so anxious about having to face just little anti Semitic comments. Just, you know Jews this, and that I mean at school I had that. I guess there's a. There was a kind of history of kind of not terrible bullying but certainly anti Semitic comments at school that were painful. And you know Jews killed Jesus and you know, jew was always a word for tight and mean and you know, even, for instance, if I'm in a, if I'm in an environment like a counseling environment and people start talking about money, I start feeling a bit anxious. You know, I can feel just like my blood pressure rising because I'm just wondering if somebody's going to say you know Jewish, this Jewish, that.

Mick Cooper: 35:54

So I think that hiddenness kind of there's an alertness and and and and I think if it, if there've been the space, like you say, to talk about culture, to talk about what it means to be Jewish, to put it out there in some ways, that would have felt better. In some ways, though I don't know. Like I think, when I I think when I did put it out then, when I did talk about it, it was kind of left unspoken and there's something about neutrality isn't reassuring. I don't know if that's a bit like what you are saying, but there's something about the neutrality and and they're kind of what I might even use to become an English whiteness. That I just is quite difficult to read and I don't know what one of the things I'm aware of is. I don't know what people are kind of thinking me. I don't know what being Jewish means and I don't think people are. I'm not sure if people would be honest about that. Like you know, when I sam jish, what is that vote? What does word do you vote? You know we have the kind of implicit bias association test with black people that show, you know, really powerful associations with blackness, brownness and negative images.

Mick Cooper: 37:10

I kind of imagine that, in the same way that racism is always there, the anti-semitism Is there. It's a, you know, it's a kind of given. I think I don't actually know, and I think there's there's an on knowing us about that. That is, I'm not even an uncanny and taps into. I'm taps into a past that is just under the surface of the show of the holocaust, victimization, persecution that just goes back generation after generation after generation, so that all the on the surface, I guess there's a sense of being white and being part of a privileged white Majority, which I feel and isn't, you know that is a reality. I think and these different from you know, black and brown people have to experience something different.

Mick Cooper: 38:02

There is also traces and nuances of something and I think sometimes I doesn't get seen the whole debate about cool within the labor party and anti-semitism. I, you know, I don't think I said you don't think I was a rabid anti-semit, but I think there was some non recognition of some of those sensitivities and something of what gets triggered and and in some of the current debates I think that is there and is no way an excuse for the, for the horrors that are going on. But I think for me, those sensitivities around jues being, you know, I have in my mind that you know, if you look at not see propaganda and that image of you know you've seen it that kind of octopus or the, all, that image of the kind of jues greedy, big nose, do you control in the world. You know that that that's very internal. I have that in my car, that and it's painful and it means that there's a sensitivity around that.

Mick Cooper: 39:07

I the last time I got really angry with somebody who is my, my, my daughter was in the show they were doing all of our and I said to the person who's doing the show do you really want to do all of it? Is a really nasty anti-semit, you know character. That, like much in the venice, do you really want to have a game? And we have this company. They were very kind of woke theater company, lots of stuff with kids and very, you know, do wonderful stuff around disabilities. But I said you really want to do that? They said no, tell the kids about anti-semitism, we won't be educational.

Mick Cooper: 39:43

And when I, when I saw the show, there was just a game comes on as just these Terrible jewish stereotype. It was so, on this thing with the kind of jewish, you know, when the hats and talking like this and where's all my money? You know, I was so hot, I was really upset, really angry, and it felt like to talk about that and to raise that was it was difficult. It touched on that kind of real sensitivity about what it means to be jewish. Yeah, and and so, so, so, yeah, so different experience, but also, yeah, and the differences, I think are really important and I think that's part of the dialogue. You know, nicola, what you saying about what we have in this dialogue. I think part of it is to understand some of those and I guess sometimes not understanding those differences is why conflict and Miss understandings happen.

Nicola Blunden: 40:44

Recently I watched david deals program juice don't count of you seen, and one of the things he talks about is that the kind of the stereotypical, anti-semitic perspective is kind of talking about this kind of powerful and that kind of means that in that, as you said, maybe that english whiteness gets to, it's under the radar or it kind of gets. People can think it's not really racism or is it's not really Prejudice. But I guess what I'm hearing you saying is you don't know when that's gonna surface. You don't know because it's it's there kind of all the time and you have to be alert to when it might come up, when someone might reveal that, and you don't get that in spaces that are culturally Jewish and you don't have to be yeah, you don't have to be on the lookout for you don't have to be protecting yourself in the same way.

Mick Cooper: 41:37

Yeah, I mean I kind of know who in the field is jewish, or I have a sense that you can sometimes tell by people's names or Sometimes, yeah, how people are. People just mannerisms, and there's a safety there. I think there's just safety. I was in, I mean I remember my twenties being in a, again, very woke environment. It was to do the arts and it was a meeting to the arts and somebody says I was something like you know, we want to do new art, we don't want to do art that is just informed by dead, the old, white dead, jews, something like that, and it was. You know the comments do you Come up in a way that is unexpected and there's a there is that kind of alertness, I think, and that sensitivity To do it.

Nicola Blunden: 42:28

Yeah, yeah, I suppose I'm also thinking about the thing about whiteness and you identifying as white and passing as white and others use maybe not identifying as white or not being identified. Certainly, if we were in another and another kind of Holocaust, I guess you wouldn't be identified as white, right you'd be.

Mick Cooper: 42:50

You'd be identified as whatever the fascist government decided to identify you, I think that's exactly right and I think that's how a lot of kind of jews identify the jewishness. By what would the Nazis have decided? You know, even though I'm not religious and you're right, nicola, that you know I see the jews with the hats. You know they're much more identifiable and it's interesting also. I mean they're involved in housing and it's interesting what being done there. But yeah, that is very different. But at the end of the day Is a lot of juice will say you know, if you're gonna be, you know, taking that, send off outfits Because you identify as jews, because you're a jews grandparent, and then that alertness is gonna be there.

Nicola Blunden: 43:34

That that's how you're gonna be kind of right and that's a generational, that's a generational part of the identity of being A jewish person, that that that persecution has followed across countries and continents and and decade and years and yeah, it was.

Mick Cooper: 43:52

I went to. I went to house fits when I went there in my twenties and I thought I'd there's a kind of music, there's a record base there, and I went there to see, just by chance, if they had records of any more family. And they did, and it was such a shock To see these german document saying so and so hands calm and different people were transported. Several members of my mom's family died in the holocaust most just, most horrific circumstances, and my dad's family is going to Ukraine, persecution, and my daughter made a film about her. My great grandfather, who is taken into the Russian army, force conscripted, kidnapped, so yeah, so there is that and it kind of follows you.

Mick Cooper: 44:42

But also what follows you, nickler, is not just that history but also that sense that as a jew, deserve that. You know that's internalized, but as a jew, deserve that there's something that you've done wrong. That means that as a jew, that happen. You know whether that's a kind of just world hypothesis, whether that's internalizing, just that races and whether it's a way of kind of unconscious trying to make sense of it. But I think that's really difficult and that's the sensitivity. You know all that stuff and happen and there was just cause. Of course there is. You know that's unjust, you know that's terrible. That would be one thing, but I think it's the shame that comes with that, the sense of guilt. You know, as we know from people being traumatized and abused, that people make sense of it in different ways and I think it's carrying that shame around, that persecution and the questions. That is maybe why there is so much part of why there's so much sensitivity.

Nicola Blunden: 45:45

Yeah, I'm just wondering if you want to respond as well.

Myira Khan: 45:51

Yeah, just fascinated by kind of make what you're sharing, I think. I think what's really struck me is something about Kind of two layers. I think is what I'm really sat with this idea of. On the surface, we, in terms of identity, there's something about my faith is very visible in your faith. Being being juridic is about it kind of sits under the surface, is not visible and being white passing. So there's something about there's a difference there when it comes to our visible identity, and not just from a From obvious difference in terms of different fades, but I'm just talking about in terms of visibility of our face. And yet when you then speak about what sits under the surface, I'm sat there going, but I'm with the same or similar. So I think I'm really struck by this thing about what might be seen, what might be seen visibly, how people perceive us, what absolutely free to us bring along various kind of projections and assumptions and expectations around us People, what people might assume we're like or think we're like, or pigeon holes, whatever they do through our visible identity.

Myira Khan: 47:05

But there's something that I can really resonate with the underneath the surface, though. I think we're both sat with History legacy and also in current events and times individually with, sat with then that experience of being oppressed and my knowledge is marginalized and, in any given moment, being on the receiving end of An example book or anti-semitic comment, to be to hear that bias or prejudice, to be witness to something that is deeply oppressive and offensive to A big part of who we are in each of our respective identities. So there's something here really interesting for me which is about or want it to, for people just to look at the two of us visibly, to put as an extra picture of the makers as we are on screen right now. There's something about we would be labelled completely differently and yet I think, underneath the surface, we both sit with, I think, shared experiences, and that is talk about that anxiety of if you're outside of a Jewish majority space, if you're not around other culturally Jewish people like you, have that increased anxiety and I'm thinking, well, yeah, I can really resonate with that for myself that if I'm in, you know, a dominant or majority Muslim space or an all Muslim space, that I'm not, as I'm not going to be as a majority.

Myira Khan: 48:33

I'm modernised as them being representative first of all, and I'm not then going to be seen as a more likely them to be seen, or I am seen, then, as the individual as I am. But there's something, then, about the moment. We are both, then, in spaces that are non, if I could put it like this, like non Jewish dominant and non Muslim dominant. We're in kind of mainstream spaces, mainstream white spaces. Something happens to both of us internally that goes oh, we become all of a sudden more sensitive to, more aware of I'm white, hyper alert to the potential for something to be said or for somebody to act towards us in a way that, then, is incredibly oppressive and dominant and coming from a very kind of very primist position.

Mick Cooper: 49:23

So, and I think one of the things about that is that it puts you in a position where you have to think. Do I want to respond?

Myira Khan: 49:29

or not.

Mick Cooper: 49:30

So it's like then you have to decide am I going to challenge this and we're going to let it go, but then feel really uncomfortable? How is this going to affect you know how I see this person? Like I want to get on with this person, but I'm getting so. It kind of makes things difficult afterwards and there's kind of legacy of it is not just the thing, but it's really interesting what you say more about. So when you're in a kind of Muslim space, do you feel that you can be more? Do you feel that you can be more yourself? Do you feel is there also that sense of kind of relaxing? I think?

Myira Khan: 50:02

there was a relaxation in the sense of people are more, are far more going to see me as my rather than Muslim counselor.

Mick Cooper: 50:11

That's so interesting. That's so interesting, so can you say more about that? You, so you feel that people will see you. More is who you are.

Myira Khan: 50:20

I think there's something around my individuality, my individual identity, lived experiences, my own opinions, maybe my own kind of whatever it might be, about my passions, my hobbies, my interests, all of that. It feels like there's some space for me to kind of share more of who I am, because there's space for it, because I'm not just being pigeonholed as Muslim and I can also in Muslim majority or Muslim spaces. I think there is also. But actually know, as I'm thinking that through, I think it depends which Muslim space I'm into, be honest. But I do think there is a greater capacity, though, to, yes, to be seen as an individual and also for your experiences and Muslim to be individual as well.

Myira Khan: 51:12

But I do think that it depends on what space you're in, though, because equally, I'm mindful that in some Muslim spaces there is something then that on the flip side, there is, I think, a pressure to conform. There is a pressure then to be like a one up, so it has its advantages and disadvantages, but from a place, though, with individuality, though I do feel that I definitely don't feel that immediate burden of I'm representing all Muslims in this space If I'm in a Muslim dominant or majority space, because actually we're all representative and therefore we were able to be. We come with an individual identity into those spaces first, yeah.

Mick Cooper: 51:56

That's interesting. Do you feel that in a kind of non Muslim space that you have to hide certain aspects of yourself? Do you feel that you have to kind of control things that maybe even otherwise?

Myira Khan: 52:11

An interesting question. I think it's situation specific. I don't necessarily think I hold a certain list or a box of things that I generally go right, none of this stuff can be spoken about in non Muslim spaces. I don't think it's that. I think it's more about being aware. I think, yeah, I think it's more about there's a process as a relational process going on in which I feel like, how am I being related to in this space? And if I'm being related to as if I'm Muslim representative or the Muslim, then I think I'm much more mindful.

Myira Khan: 52:50

I think of perhaps what I do say or share, versus being related to Asmira, and I think when I'm related to Asmira, I can bring more of myself. So it's not necessarily that there are certain things I don't speak about. It's just about what is their capacity in this relationship where I can bring more of myself into it or not, whereas if I feel like I'm being brought into a space or related to as being a Muslim representative or representing Muslims, I feel like, oh, there are just barriers immediately up or certain hurdles that I'm like, ah, I've got to get this person to kind of remove those or jump over those Before they can actually see me, for the very fact that they've not seen me means that I can't bring all of me into it because there is. They haven't created the capacity for all the space for me in that relationship. I don't know if that makes sense.

Mick Cooper: 53:40

Oh yeah, no, totally, totally. But how do you do? Is it something? Is there something that gives you a sense that somebody's not seeing you, that they're seeing you as that representative of them? How do you, how do you sense that?

Myira Khan: 53:54

I was thinking that I was just hanging out, it's a good question, so I was thinking I don't actually show. It's a feeling, it's a vibe, it's a. I think it's about and I'm something specifically about, specifically about professional spaces. I think for me it's about as a Muslim, as a Muslim therapist just in that identity alone it's about I'm always curious about and I think I always I'm curious.

Myira Khan: 54:16

But I think I always question why am I being invited into this space? Because Is it a quick win that the people that hold power in that space have got great tick box? We've got a Muslim being representing and I think it's hard to pinpoint and be specific. But I think for me I pick up relationally when I know that they've invited me because they actually know about me and my individual work, versus they speak to me as if they know nothing about me individually and they're speaking to me. Yeah, actually it's that it comes down to are they speaking to me as if they know me or not? I know that sounds really vague, but I can just sense it. I know what. I've been invited into spaces feeling like, oh, I'm the only Muslim in this space. I think I've been invited because I represent a particular marginalized community versus my real want you to be in this space.

Nicola Blunden: 55:17

I don't know if this is helpful, but I have been learning about code switching recently. Yeah, code switching this idea I think it came in the black community or personal color community Initially. It's this idea that the language that you use shifts depending on the context that you're in, and I've seen a lot of LGBTQ spaces talking about it and neurodivergent spaces. I can identify with code switching a way of being myself more authentically in spaces where I know that those codes are going to be shared and your whole kind of presentation and way of being. It's very, it's very unconscious recognizing when you're in a space where you can be your natural codes or speak to your natural codes, and where you can't.

Myira Khan: 56:02

I don't know if that's helpful.

Myira Khan: 56:04

Yeah, I definitely think it is. I think there is definitely an element of and I think I was, I think I was doing it more unconsciously like going back to like 14 years ago when I did my training. I look back and go, oh, I think I did. I did a lot of code switching to feel like I had to fit in and to feel like I did belong. Now I think I'm much more conscious of when I do that and I do it less, if that makes sense, yeah, but yeah, in exactly that, nick, you know somebody also who is neurodivergent as well. So for me there's something about.

Myira Khan: 56:37

I think that's the other thing. I'm also really mindful of being invited into spaces because they want a Muslim perspective or they want a ethnic minority perspective. But it's really interesting because I kind of show up in these spaces and go. But I also represent other identities as well and I'm going to be explicit and name those as well and I'm going to be speaking on neurodivergence, neurodiversity, working within neurodiversity, at an upcoming conference. And it's the same thing where I'm going to introduce by actually naming those parts of my identity Because, again, it's so easy to feel like I wear hijab, therefore I'm representative of Muslims, but somehow that excludes me from representing any other community that I'm actually a member of, and I think I'm doing a lot more work for me and for the profession by actually being much more open, authentic and explicit about that. I think that's so important in our profession that we hold space for each of our identities and not just for the ones that we have come to represent or become known for, if that makes sense.

Mick Cooper: 57:52

There's something very powerful for me that are about also kind of like what's visible and what's not visible. Like your hijab is visible, your neurodiversity isn't. I guess I was talking about my Jewishness is less visible, and there's something about having space for both the visible and, really importantly, the non-visible. I guess, as therapists, we should know that, shouldn't we? There's something about non-visible identities, but there is something very powerful about visible identities and I guess it's a kind of cognitive bias for one of that word that we can be overly influenced by them and read a lot based on.

Mick Cooper: 58:34

I did my thesis, actually, when my PhD was on masks, and I was really interested in masks and the way that I did a study as part of my PhD where we put on, asked people to hold the same body pose, but in one case we're a happy mask and in one case we're a sad mask, and then other people had to write what they were, what imagine what that person was feeling, even though they knew absolutely that it was a mask, and we said this is a mask. We told them it was a mask. When they looked at the person wearing a happy mask, they thought they were happier than the person wearing a sad mask. I mean it's a clear kind of cognitive bias and a mistake. But yeah, I did want to. I mean for you, it was so good to us, and don't answer this if you don't want to. But I did want to understand a bit more about the hijab and what it means for you and what's that experience.

Myira Khan: 59:25

Yeah, interestingly I. So I I chose and I started wearing the hijab what might be deemed kind of quite late, if that makes sense, because I know that for culturally, I think, for girls to wear hijab it's, you know, from that puberty age, you know so kind of the equivalent then of kind of in secondary school you'll see girls wear and you see a lot more now as well. Culturally for me, because of my, my childhood, because of my cultural background that I've grown up in, nobody in my no women in my family wore hijab in the way that I do. I mean culturally, coming from a of a South Asian heritage, like they'll wear the scarves loosely over their head, but that's cultural, rather than wearing hijab in the way that I wear it. And so for me, coming to it was absolutely kind of this individual journey and, interestingly, I started wearing the hijab at the point where I just so we're going back again 15 years ago, interestingly, so the timelines correspond I started wearing the hijab like full time, like that very properly, because I tend to wear it during Ramadan, during the month of fasting, for the few years prior. But I decided to start wearing it kind of properly and all the time when I started my training interestingly. So I've done my two year certificate in, so I've done a counselling and then, just as I was due to start then my two year diploma, it was in that summer. So I did the certificate straight. You know, I did the diploma straight off the back of the certificate and I had like a summer break and it was during that summer. So I started my training at the point where I started wearing a hijab.

Myira Khan: 1:01:00

So my journey of being a counsellor is so kind of parallel to my experience of being visibly Muslim and I think a lot of that has to then do with to do then with the counsellor I've become, because that journey to choose to wear it and to be visibly Muslim I think has really played a part. Then in, like you were just saying, mick, about how we, how we present visibly, holds such great weight to how we perceive people that I was learning that at the time I was training to be a counsellor and to sit with my clients and go, okay, visibly, look like this, but what's, what's the hidden parts, what's beneath or behind your visible identity? And I think I was much a I felt and I feel like that helped me to be more tuned to my clients, because I found that that was happening to me as well, that people were seeing the scarf first it was my, my first experience of that and then going over it, but there's myra behind it, like I'm not just the scarf. So, yeah, so for me, like I said, it's like 15 odd years ago that I started wearing it, and very much an individual journey. And that's another thing again, I think the projections, the stereotypes that come with wearing the hijab, it's like again, it's all those connotations of where you're oppressed, you're told you have to wear it.

Myira Khan: 1:02:27

It's like your dad's told you you must and I'm like mine was the complete opposite experience. So for me it's a very individual relationship with it. I think for me it is a way of. For me it is a symbol, a signifier of grounding me in my faith. I think it's something yes, it's something kind of very it's both physical as various as well as very metaphorical of, yeah, grounding me in my faith. And it's interesting that I chose to do that then, just as I started to train as a counselor, because I do absolutely think that the two are connected.

Mick Cooper: 1:03:08

It sounds like it was an expression of an internal process and very much aligned with recognizing that faith and wanting to be outside physically in alignment with what you felt very powerfully deep inside. It was part of your growth and very much part of that journey to, to, to wear the hijab.

Myira Khan: 1:03:29

And it was something that I felt I wanted to have. I wanted to have a real sense of holding it entirely, but to then wear a text, to wear a job and to have it externally Also, I think you go through a real process of how can I put it? It really challenges your ego, incredibly challenges your ego, and, I think it's interesting was all about identity and, hidden and hidden, invisible, there's a real irony. I think that in wearing hijab, you actually, for me, it was about not tying up my ego or my sense of value in what I looked like externally and actually helped me to find value internally. So, rather than a value because I should really put that in context because for me previously, before I would get a job, it's like I had at the time, really long hair and it would be commented on all the time, and so for me, there was something about a real value in my hair, and you know that.

Myira Khan: 1:04:43

The anxieties and the attachment I had to having good hair days Do you know what I mean? Like the anxiety of going, what makes me feel good about myself and what makes me feel worthwhile or valuable or attractive as a person. It was all tied up in my hair, and so to wear the hijab for me was a moment of going. Why are you on? Hey, you're not your hair, but also your value is about what's in your heart and in your soul, and not tied up in what's something external.

Nicola Blunden: 1:05:14

Can I ask something then, myra, because I think this is surfacing something for me that is around faith and around experiencing my differences as a woman here, somebody whose hair is kind of visible. Perhaps one of my fears as a woman is that I might be breaking one of your rules or that I might be doing something that you would judge, as you know. I mean, I'm not I'm not feeling that about you because I know you, myra but thinking about how a woman who doesn't wear a hijab might be afraid of what is the judgment coming out? I think this speaks to kind of faith difference and not necessarily knowing what in Islam you might you might feel about women who don't wear hijabs and things. I just think it's helpful to explore that.

Myira Khan: 1:05:58

Yeah, I think for me, and maybe because I've had a adult experience of not wearing a hijab, so maybe I came to it as a level of maturity and understanding at the time, 15 years ago. But also with that, I think, in offering myself compassion for then, for that, how can I say that in choosing to wear it, I was then able to offer compassion to the Myra that didn't wear it before. But for you know, however, many years before I didn't wear it, and so because of that, then I sit with that respect and value for any woman, muslim, non Muslim who wears hijab or who doesn't wear hijab, because for me it's such an individual journey and I think I do that thing that I wouldn't want. I probably was. I don't know whether I was consciously explicitly judged for not wearing it at the time, and I don't. I don't ever remember being just.

Myira Khan: 1:06:52

As I said earlier, I grew up in a family that women didn't wear wear proper I say proper traditional hijab. So I grew up in a family that we weren't judged or shamed for not wearing hijab, and so for me, part of my faith is to actually offer that compassion to every other woman and to go from this book, and particularly for Muslim women. If you wear hijab, if you don't wear hijab, that's your individual journey and that's your business. I'm not here to sit and judge that, so I think that's something on both sides.

Nicola Blunden: 1:07:21

I think what kind of what is this is this discussion is touching off on me. Is this the kind of the way that faiths, religious faiths, have been pitted against each other culturally and kind of globally? And I'm also still holding what you said earlier in the video, mick, about the, the shame that's projected onto Jewish people. That is part of the identity of being Jewish, that is, that's a faith narrative, right, that's. That's very much about Christian interpretations of Jewish, jewish practices, jewish belief, and I'm.

Myira Khan: 1:07:54

I'm doing that kind of under.

Nicola Blunden: 1:07:56

perhaps perhaps you too, as individuals, what? What is meaningful to you about human relationship? Maybe I don't know if there's something about. I'm thinking from perspective somebody who's race as a Christian who sees the world? Christian see the world as those who are in the right faith, those who are in the wrong faith, those who are true believers, those who aren't true believers. There's this separatism that's projected out, but actually the three of us as individuals will have probably different metaphysical beliefs about what we're doing on the planet and what a relationship is that fundamental level? Just wondering if you could both speak to.

Mick Cooper: 1:08:31

I'm not sure this relates exactly to what you say, nicola, but what came up for me when you asked him more of that question and about feeling judge, was just about, you know, we talked about the kind of experience and marginalization and minoritization, and I think what we haven't talked about so much is what gets projected onto people of different faith that is threatening or judgmental or critical, and I think is, you know, if I think about, as a Jew, my relationship to Christianity that Jews are seen as harmful, as dangerous, you as destroying is, you know, eating Christian children and kind of circumcising them and things like that. And I think that there is those projections. It's really interesting that in your hijab, you know, you're talking about it as a kind of symbol of personal growth and as an expression of something deeply spiritual within you, and yet people can read that as something aggressive or critical and I think, as being Jewish people can see that Judaism as being something that they have to defend against or something threatening. And it's just, it's so alien to my experience, you know, sometimes when I hear these conspiracy theories about Jews, I think like just what you know, like I just kind of made this light, is not the Jews that I know, like controlling the world and the banks and doing everything, and yet there is this projection of enormous threat onto others. And I guess that's something about put talking about our personal experiences and relating in that way is important because I think when people listen more when I listen to you, he job and what it means for you it's so different from the stereotypes I hold, it's so different from a kind of fear that it's threatening that you know what I understand. I read a book about around the Prophet Muhammad and I just found that, you know, really moving to actually understand it and to have some sense of it, not understand it, have some sense of it. The projections onto Islam, I mean, are just horrendous. Just horrendous in terms of how it's seen as, and I think for a lot of people that's the immediate association is Islam threat, terrorists.

Mick Cooper: 1:10:39

You know something destructive Jews may be powerful and and and, and I think it's partly because we don't share, we don't talk about the experiences or what we. What we do is we go from our own experience of insecurity. So it's something I've learned being in the therapy world for all these years and you're just a youngster, myra, compared to me. You know 15 years, I think God knows how many decades have been here it's just how vulnerable everybody is, just how vulnerable and scared most of us are. And right, you know most. You know so few of us are thinking about you know I want to do this to hurt so and so I just you know, I'm sure you know we're your clients, but that's not where clients are at. They're not thinking, oh, how can I destroy people, how can I hurt people?

Mick Cooper: 1:11:24

So much of the dialogue is feeling threatened, feeling scared, and, as a Jew, feel scared. I think, as a Muslim, you know you feel scared. I'm sure Christians feel scared as well and and that is the talking and sharing I think, seeing those inner worlds, that maybe you can diffuse some of that fear and help us realize that the other isn't out to get us. Sometimes they can be scary, but often it's because of something that is unknown. That's not a threat. That's not a threat just because it's different. Sorry, nicola, I didn't answer your question at all.

Nicola Blunden: 1:11:56

I feel like I want to say that I don't identify as Christian, but partly because of that, partly because of that I mean I don't have, I don't share that faith, but that the projection, fearful projection on the groups is part of part of religious dogmatism that I can't kind of sit with and I think that is partly I might project on to somebody in inner faith. I might assume that there that dogmatism comes with that, when, when it doesn't, but it's part of being raised in this society.

Myira Khan: 1:12:26

Yeah, and I'm wondering then, if that I'm immediately like I'm linking it back then to, as me and Mick have spoken about, kind of our experiences then being in the mic, being in kind of non Jewish basis for me, being a non Muslim space, is that I think that's the anxiety we're speaking about Feeling of unknown, unfamiliar, unsafe, of what is going to come at us because of the stereotypes that people will hold about our faith.

Myira Khan: 1:12:53

And I think that then immediately relates then to why I'm so mindful of how I then show up in spaces, because maybe I'm then consciously and unconsciously then doing my heart is doing all the kind of emotional and mental gymnastics then not to be the threat, not to be the terrorist, not to be the person that's going to be angry and destructive and somebody that's going to be oppositional.

Myira Khan: 1:13:19

And I think I'm just so mindful that there's something about needing to show up in a way that feels open and welcoming and friendly and I'm like your friendly neighborhood Muslim therapist kind of thing, and it does. I think at times it does feel like that, but me as a Muslim woman in a hijab coming into a space, yes, might or will feel threatening to some people, and so I then have to be non threatening. I think it's reflected in and I think that I hold because again we don't just hold marginalized identities I absolutely then equally hold alongside it some privileged identities, and I think my education, my professional status, my accent then go a long way in reducing the threat. So I recognize that I have also resources and tools to hand but also enable me to kind of dispel some of those threats or projections that somebody might have on their immediate perception of me. But I do know that that immediate perception of me is there whenever I walk into a room.

Mick Cooper: 1:14:42

So interesting, myron, I really share that sense of having kind of going into space in a way, diffusing not being the greedy Jew, not being the selfish one, not being this kind of powerful Jewish caricature, but diffusing that and kind of being your nice friendly Muslim, your nice friendly Jew. He won't, he won't going to do any harm, and it is kind of it is extra work, isn't it? As you say, it kind of takes extra work that you have to do that and probably, probably, I imagine you have to do it in more than me in a sense that because of the visibility that is going to come at you, I've kind of got a choice about whether I disclose, whether I talk about being Jewish, and so there's a different process and there's both processes Do I introduce it and then do I diffuse it or do I just leave it and kind of pass as a Christian? But in that lose something of myself in that process.

Mick Cooper: 1:15:43

And I think part of me you know part of me when you're talking about, when the child part of me is really impressed and proud, if that's the right word, and thinking, wow, that's because there's something about you putting yourself out there and saying, right, I know, people are going to make stereotypes and have assumptions about what is really important to me and I'm going to put myself out there and it does make me think, you know, I could wear a stave, david. I could have changed my name to more, you know, back to my family name, to make it much more evident that I was Jewish, and I kind of chose, I guess in a way, not to do that and see, kind of have those options which kind of feel bad. I mean, it's almost part of that. Yeah, just maybe it would have been braver to just really say, or maybe I shouldn't have to feel that I have to face that in the first place.

Nicola Blunden: 1:16:29

I think what I'm really left with, kind of coming to the end of this conversation is one of the things you talk about, myra, is kind of being a safer person, that there's no safe space, but be a safer person in the space. It's something I talk about a lot with students and how we can be safer people. It's just about, isn't it for me, as somebody with that white privilege of being just being able to sense, when I'm relating to somebody with those projections, you know, in a way, that creates that anxiety for me. I'm doing some of the work, so you're not having to do the work, so that I'm doing the work, so that in the space you don't need to be sensitive to my anxiety, that I can actually sit with my anxiety and realise that there's no threat here.

Mick Cooper: 1:17:11

I think that's so well put, nicola. I think that's so well put and I think in that it is something about people from privileged groups doing that work of thinking about the stereotypes, thinking about the assumptions, kind of diffusing it in a way that then allows people from marginalised groups not to have to do all that work all the time because they can go into that space. I think there's something proactive about that. It's like it can't. I mean, it is a psychological, internal process for people in those privileged groups, but also I think something needs to be communicated. I think that's what we're also talking about is like and again it comes about this thing about visibility and invisibility, but kind of as a Jewish person, I kind of assume antisemitism unless that's diffused.

Mick Cooper: 1:17:55

You know Maura has been talking about kind of assuming people who make assumptions. There's something about and we're talking about trainers. You know that's where he talks about trainers and I think that's such a key thing that you're emphasising there Like trainers need to hold this, they need to address this. The idea that kind of being neutral is going to somehow resolve it just by being non-directive and not going anywhere. It needs guiding and it needs explicitness in bringing up these issues and addressing these issues and holding these issues and supporting people to feel that they can really bring themselves forwards in the way that we've been talking about.

Myira Khan: 1:18:31

Maura, perhaps if I give the last word to you about that as well, about what that would look like for you, I just I think what I'm left with is just a real sense that this is really nuanced and actually, for me it just emphasises why we need to have the spaces in our trainings and in our counselling services to have these dialogues and discussions about who we are.

Myira Khan: 1:18:52

Because I'm just thinking about between me and Nick, between me and Nick today I think I've just got a sense of gosh, how much have we been individually carrying? And actually there are like-minded or similar people who are carrying those similar burdens and responsibilities and doing those same kind of emotional and mental gymnastics, and yet we're actually in the same kind of group trying to do that. You know we're in the same position. So I think the more we're able to have open dialogues about it, and especially on trainings, I think that allows us to understand that how much we are each individually carrying in order just to navigate the world. Like there's so much going on internally and I think we need to allow space and capacity for us to explore that further.

Nicola Blunden: 1:19:36

Thank you very much both of you. That was really wonderful. I loved kind of sitting here with you and I hope the listeners enjoyed that too and have their own kind of response that they're co-creating some meaning from that. That's important meaning for them. Thank you for your time and for doing it.

Mick Cooper: 1:19:50

Thank you so much, Nicola, for holding the space and for Myra for being so open and talking about things.

Myira Khan: 1:19:56

Yeah, thank you as well, Meg. I feel like I've just there's something about having discovered such commonalities between our experiences, and I just think that's a beautiful thing. So thank you, meg, and thank you, nicola, for facilitating and holding such a safe space. Thanks, myra, thank you.