Episode 156 - Diana Zaheer, Understanding The Critical Voice
We invited Diana Zaheer to join us again to discuss "The Critical Voice" We spent a majority of our time talking about her favorite healing room - Critical Voice. We felt that maybe homeschooling parents in particular MAY struggle with this more due to social pressures we feel in addition to family upbringing. We ask questions like - What is a Critical voice and how do we recognize it? Who has a critical voice? Is a critical voice necessary? How do I quiet my critical voice? Diana gives us tools and resources to acknowledge and hopefully see the positive in the critical voice and then speak more loving to ourselves and each other.
Also listen to more of our discussion on Episode 146
Email: dianazaheer88@gmail.com
Website: www.dianazaheer.com
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Diana says, “As far back as I can recall -- I think I was four years old -- I saw energy. It didn't seem strange; in fact, it felt quite natural. Its visual presence provided comfort and companionship. It reminded me that I was not alone in my everyday conventional life but part of a greater reality that was beneficent, unbounded and true. I come from a family with generations of sensitive people. Two of my grandparents worked as healers.
After working as a journalist for many years, I began studying energy healing techniques and spiritual traditions from around the world. I wanted to help people understand energy and healing with the same precision and measurability of journalistic science. I have lived in the United States, Dubai, Nepal, Kazakhstan and India. I come from the birth place of Berkeley, California.
My formal healing studies began at the age of 23 when I joined the Diamond Heart Training of the Ridhwan School in Berkeley, California. I studied with that group for 15 years. To better understand the physiology and anatomy of the human body, I completed a California state approved massage therapy and healing arts certification from the Diamond Light School in Marin County, California. From Healing Touch International, an organization started by U.S. nurses to share techniques and understanding about energy work, I learned the importance of being able to clearly talk with clients about the energy field and the healing process. She has also lived overseas meet and learning from
practitioners of different spiritual and healing traditions.
“I am a veteran homeschooling mom. I didn't expect that would be our path, but both of my kids wanted to homeschool for most of their educational careers. We have two sons, Ali, 16, and Nuri, 10. Their wishes and choices fit naturally with my work and the way our family functions. My husband and I put family first and take pleasure in witnessing, attuning to and guiding the lives of our two boys. We have homeschooled all over the world -- on a mountaintop in Nepal, in a desert community in Dubai, in a primitive Kazakh town and in vibrant cities in India. Our homeschooling journey involves gifted learning and twice exceptional learning.”
Living overseas, I have had the privilege to meet and learn from practitioners of different spiritual and healing traditions. In Nepal, I began privately studying Tibetan medicine with gifted master teacher Dr. Namgyal Phunrab and have integrated its ancient philosophy and practices into my work. In Nepal and India, I have had the great fortune to spend time in many monasteries. In India, I have been truly blessed to attend workshops offered by His Holiness The 17th Gyalwang Karmapa and his root teacher His Eminence The 12th Khentin Tai Situ Rinpoche and to meet with them personally. I have focused my studies during the past few years on teachings from the New Thought - Ancient Wisdom tradition, immersing myself in the works of Ernest Holmes, Joel Goldsmith and Michael Bernard Beckwith. I am truly grateful for my private work in this tradition with Ester Nicholson, author of Soul Recovery.
Many of my clients seek support from me as part of their inner journey to find depth and meaning in their lives. I also have specialized experience working with people who - are gifted and talented, have trauma in their personal history, experience high sensitivity to their environments, underachieve despite big natural capacities, feel alien in the conventional world.
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Quotes: "If you or I were to go down to the mall near our house and we had a little machine that could listen inside people's heads, pretty much every single person in that mall could be heard giving themselves a hard time."
"This voice comes up in all of us when we are afraid, or we don't know what to do, or we are confused, or we are overwhelmed because the other parts of us aren't responding as quickly as the critical voice."
"Often the critical voice will come in and judge even our decision to be a homeschooling parent because people in conventional schooling environments or our own family may not understand. So I may even have a judgement that there is something wrong with me for even wanting to homeschool my kids."
"I may hear external judgement from people which triggers my own internalized judgment of doubt."
"What if that thing they are saying to themselves or that comment that is swirling around their head. What if we pause and consider that's not true."
"There is so much love from generation to generation, that does get obscured because we are humans, on a journey, on a planet where we are learning. It is not a perfect planet. There is a lot of wacky things that happens here, but there is also a lot of love."
"I love how Maya Angelou always talked about, "if we knew better, we'd do better" because that is what humans do. We learn and then we apply it, we grow and everybody gets blessed."
"Even though it feels absolutely real and we believe it down to our toes. Any judgement we have about ourselves or another person is not the deepest truth."
