Episode 1: My Own Journey!

Hello, beautiful souls and welcome to the NeuroDivine podcast which is centered around the intersection of spirituality and neurodivergence, two of my biggest passions. 

This podcast was created for several reasons, with the most relevant one being that it is my belief that neurodivergent souls come into this world at higher levels of consciousness. 

Many struggle with "3D" neurotypical issues because they don't align with our values or ways of being in the world. 

And most of us are empaths. Spirituality is the core of who we are and why we are so sensitive to the environment.

This first episode is my personal spiritual journey as a late diagnosed ADHDer with sensory processing differences. 

Disclaimer:
The views and opinions expressed by guests on this episode are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host or NeuroDivine Podcast.

All content provided in this episode is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as medical, psychological, or professional advice, nor should it be used as a substitute for diagnosis, treatment, or care by a qualified healthcare professional.

Listeners are encouraged to seek guidance from licensed medical or mental health professionals regarding any health-related concerns. Reliance on any information provided in this podcast is solely at the listener’s own discretion and responsibility.

Transcript

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Welcome to the NeuroD Divine, a sanctuary where spirituality and neurodivergence meet. I'm your host, Dr. Rabia Sani. I'm a Sufi and a DHD, or a spiritual mentor and a fellow sensitive soul. Here, we honor your wiring as intentional, sacred, and deeply meaningful. Each week we explore the unique spiritual gifts of neurodivergent minds and the state of our becoming in the neurotypical world. Please note that all information presented in this podcast is meant to be informational or educational in nature, and does not imply a therapeutic relationship with me. If you feel in need of mental health services, I highly recommend that you check out the website nd therapist with an s@theend.com. This is a space where I hope you feel safe, seen and divinely supported on your own spiritual, on your own spiritual path. Let's begin. Hello, and welcome to the first episode of the NeuroD Divine Podcast. My name is Rabia Sani, and I will be your host on what I hope will be an incredible ride. So let me tell you a little bit about my own spiritual journey and what led to my quote unquote awakening, because that's gonna kind of set the stage for the main reason why I started this podcast. And to give you a very brief background, I am a clinical neuropsychologist and also a late diagnosed A DHD or with sensory processing differences. Looking back, I think I really decided to go into neuropsychology because I wanted to be able to understand how the brain works and influences behavior. That wasn't the only reason, but I think that was part of it. So when I try to pinpoint when I really, truly began my spiritual journey, it takes me back to 2012 when I went through a fairly unexpected and painful separation and divorce. I'm not gonna go into details about that, that's not important. Uh, just to say that it was kind of the impetus that led me to begin my spiritual journey and what happened was that the main reason why I decided to start exploring my own. Personal and spiritual growth was because my son, who's autistic, was not handling the separation very well. He was having a lot of anger management issues, had a lot of meltdowns 'cause he was overwhelmed and at one point it was literally me and him screaming at each other. And I had a lot of shame around this because I was the adult, I was the professional. I had no business. Yelling at him, and I had a lot of, I guess, just a lot of guilt that I had gotten to this point where I'm yelling at my poor child who needs me to be caring and compassionate instead of me dealing with my own issues. And so I decided that it was not his responsibility to change. It was mine because I'm the adult, I'm the mom. I need to do something to make our relationship better. He was already going through a lot of stuff. Basically it was, he was a child and it was not his responsibility. And I knew he was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed, but I also, and at the time, I did not know I was neurodivergent. I just knew that I was. Not going about it the most graceful of ways. So anyway, I began my own spiritual journey. I began with mindfulness and went into spiritual retreats. I did a lot of training. I actually did a two year program with doctors Jack Kornfield and Tara Brock on mindfulness and meditation. Because I found the most peace when I was able to meditate. I was really drawn to Buddhism and mindfulness, and so I got into it heavily for several years, was fairly convinced I was a Buddhist, and I also saw how this was changing my relationship with my child because I was now having more compassion around our communication. I was more mindful. I was a better parent. I was doing self-care. I was giving myself self-compassion, which is something that I think is so lacking for most of us. We don't think about it, but we all have a lot of work to do, especially in giving ourselves the same compassion that we would give to others. And so as I evolved on this path of. Learning to take care of myself, learning how to slow down, learning how to be more present. I started noticing slow shifts in the way I was showing up as a person, but more importantly as a parent. And so our relationship started changing bit by bit, I think, because I was, and I didn't know at this time about co-regulation or any of this stuff, so I didn't realize that my sheer presence of calmness and mindfulness was actually helping too. My helped regulate my son's nervous system. Things started slowly shifting. I was convinced, again, like I said, that I was Buddhist and I had a very loving, wonderful mentor at the time who was a Buddhist to nun and she had converted from Judaism a couple of decades ago, and she of course, happened to move into the small town I live in. Right when I needed somebody to be a guide and we would have long conversations and I would tell her, I think I'm Buddhist. I think I'm Buddhist. And she would say, no, honey, when your soul finds its home, your heart is gonna know it's not gonna be. I think I am. It's gonna be. I know I am. And so I kept that in the back of my mind and I still kept thinking it was, you know, I think I'm Buddhist. I love meditating. I love all of the qualities that are taught in Buddhism. And then what happened was one day I was watching Oprah's Super Soul Sundays, and she has different spiritual teachers on all the time. I'm listening to this guy and he's a Sufi mystic. There was something about the, what he was saying that I was really drawn in, but it was a very short interview. So I went on YouTube and I start looking at all these videos by him, and one of the videos he's talking about how he's a silent Sufi. Because he meditates a lot in silence and something in that interview just cracked me wide open. And I started crying and I was, my whole body was shivering. I had goosebumps. It was like a whole body experience and a whole body. Yes, I am a Sufi. I am a Sufi. And I had just forgotten. And now I remember. And it was such a pivotal moment in my life because it was one of the first inklings of who I was meant to be and what path I was meant to follow. But after listening to that, of course I am, I'm an avid reader, so I bought all his books and I'm reading through all the books and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. And just to preface this by saying that, back in the nineties, oh, so by the way, I realized I was a Sufi on 8 18 18. How amazing is that? Anyway, back to the story. In the nineties, I had been a strong, strong, that's not even strong enough. I was a diehard fan of this very famous Pakistani, that's my background. Pakistani Sufi singer, his name was Han. He was actually very popular in the West because he loved to. Experiment and mix Western music with Sufi music. He worked with a lot of movie producers. He did soundtracks for very well known movies. He worked with Peter Gabriel. They'd put out some songs together. So anyway, I got really mesmerized by his music and I would literally go into trances when I was listening to him sing.'cause he would sing very spiritual Sufi songs and the way he sings some of them. You do this repetition of certain syllables and it can send you into a trance-like state. I would completely get lost in his music. So I was already kind of flirting with Sufism even back then. So anyway, when I went through this whole epiphany of, oh my gosh, yes, I'm a Sufi, then of course I started exploring different paths because there are lots of different Sufi paths, and for those who are unfamiliar, Sufism is basically the mystical aspect of Islam in Sufism. One of our primary goals is to experience oneness with the divine. We do this through different ways. You can do it through art or poetry or music, and different orders of Sufis used different methods to achieve that oneness with God. For example, the singer who I loved, he's unfortunately has passed since then, but his group is called jti, and they achieve oneness with God through music. The order that I actually ended up. Initiating into is the MEV Levy order, which is from Rumi's Lineage, and I think most people are familiar with Rumi. He's actually the bestselling poet in the world. Even if you haven't heard his name, you've probably read some of his sayings. And how that happened was I started exploring all the different orders and trying to see which one. Was the one that I resonated with the most. Uh, attended some different sessions with different orders. One day I was thinking, I really, really just want to be in the presence of a Sufi teacher. There was this author whose book I'd read, and I really loved his writing. His name was Kir Ky, and one day I was just googling Sufi retreats. Just randomly this retreat popped up and it said, we're doing a writer's retreat in Costa Rica. Application only. I started thinking about it and I'm like, of course imposter syndrome comes up. And I'm like, I'm not a writer, I don't have any right to go. And then I thought, you know what? Let me just apply and if it's meant to be, I'll end up going. So I did. I applied and. Ka very graciously reached out to me and asked me a little bit about me and why I was interested and, and he invited me, so I accepted. I later found out that this link was not even public. It was just sent to the people, like their small group. For some some reason, of course, synchronicity. It popped up when I was doing a search. Anyway, I went to that retreat and that was probably. So I've had several spiritual epiphanies in my life. The second one was when I realized I was a Sufi, and I forgot to mention the first one, I'll tell you in a minute. The third one was when I went on this retreat, this retreat was absolutely incredible on a very, very deep, spiritual level. It was a very quiet, secluded. A retreat place on the beach. There were just a few people there. I, I don't remember the exact number, but it was, I think it was under 20, it was maybe 12 or 15. The most incredibly gracious, beautiful souls. Everyone was there in a very state of surrender and spiritual immersion, and I think that really helped because. Being in such a beautiful unpolluted, secluded area on the beach with people who are all there for a similar purpose. Was really life transforming. Life transforming. And I had gone in there thinking, oh, I'm not a writer. I don't have any right to be here. And something just opened up in me. Poetry was just flowing through me. It was not me. It was just coming from somewhere else, but it was a really, really magical experience and really changed me. After that, I was like, okay, this is my spiritual home. I know I'm meant to be here. I did going back into the mind a little bit, because I tend to do that a lot. I did go back and still explore other Sufi orders because I wanted to be very sure that the one that I committed to was the one that. Uh, most closely resonated with my energy and what I was looking for in life. I waited, I think a year or two maybe, and then I did reach out to Sheik Kabi or Sheik Means teacher in Sufism. I reached out to Sheik Kabi and I said, I would love to be a part of the, your me, the order, and I'd like to initiate in Turkey because that is where. The me of the order started and I had been to Turkey before and I felt like my, it was my so home. The following year, we did go to the group. Uh, so the order that I'm in is called Threshold Society, so we did go to Turkey the following year and I did initiate, and that, those are like my fourth and fifth spiritual epiphanies because I did have a somatic. Healing session before I initiated, and that was, that's probably a story for another day. All of that to say that after these experiences, as I have slowly evolved on the path, even before Sufism, everything I've done has led me to the point where it's no longer enough that I am just a neuropsychologist. That part of me seems. Less important than my spiritual side. But what I didn't see before and I can see more clearly now, is that it was all done for a purpose. Because at this stage of my life, at this stage of my spiritual development, I want to live everything from a place of complete soul alignment. I want my job, my personal life, my spiritual life, my mental, emotional life. All of it to be in one beautiful, glorious whole. But that's what I've slowly been doing. I've been evolving over the years, and if you ever go to my professional website where I do assessments for adults who are neurodivergent. You will see that there's a lot of woowoo sprinkled into the site because I really want to call to me, the clients who are into spirituality, because I think that those are the people that I am meant to help. Those are the people who I'm meant to in some way, shape or form, bring out their glory, their gloriousness, their magnificence. I think it's ironic that last, I think it was last year, I realized that I was also an A DHD, and that really changed things up for me. It gave me a whole new perspective on, you know, growing up my childhood and why and how does that integrate with my spirituality? How does that show up? So now at this stage of my life, what I really want to explore. And what I want to really dedicate maybe the future of my professional and personal life is the intersection of spirituality and neurodivergence, because as I've grown on this path, and this is a part that I kind of left out, oh, before I do that, let me tell you my first spiritual epiphany, that was in 2012. When I read a book, I lost my dad very tragically in 1999, and I really never got over that. I didn't really process it, so it was a really deep wound in me. And in 2012 I started reading books by authors who had had near death experiences, and I read this one book, it was called Dying to Be Me by Anita Mujani. And this book. Was my first real experience of reading about unity consciousness we're all one, the collective consciousness, the universe, whatever you wanna call it. That was my first real exposure to this mind boggling knowledge that we are all really just one. And I had never. I don't know why, but if I had read it, maybe I wasn't ready to receive it, but when I read this book, my eyes were completely open. I was like, oh my God, this lady knows the truth. This is the truth of life. This is what I always knew at the back of my mind, but I didn't know how to verbalize. So this book was my first, I would have to say my first big spiritual opening. The second one was. When I remembered I was a Sufi, the third one was the Costa Rica retreat. Fourth one was a somatic experiencing healing that I had done in Turkey prior to my initiation. This, I won't go into a lot of details about this one 'cause I don't wanna bore you, but I will just say that literally in about 15 minutes, the Sufi Somatic Cutter took out probably. 20, 30, 40 years of trauma outta my body. And I felt like I lost a lot of weight after it was done. It was painful, and yet it was perfect. And I thanked him afterwards. He was apologizing for hurting me. I was like, no, I needed it. I just feel so much lighter. And it was amazing. And then the next day was my initiation into the Sufi order. My teacher was asking me about the somatic therapy or somatic experience, and I was like, yeah, it was really painful. He said something like, the vessel has to be empty for the receiving, and I was like, oh, yes, of course it does. Of course it does. The next spiritual epiphany was my initiation when I dedicated my path to this meth levy order and began my journey as a dervish as we're called. After that, I'm kind of going back and forth, but I want to make sure I cover all my important bases because part of the biggest epiphany I've had over the last two or three years has been the importance of body work, and I don't think that it's addressed enough in a lot of spiritual work because for me, my spirituality had always been from the neck up. I mean, literally, I could sit there and meditate for hours. I could do all the practices, you know, meditation, like gratitude and abundance and kindness and self-compassion. But I really, I really, really neglected my body. I just didn't think of it as part of my spiritual work because I thought of the body as something separate from my spirituality. And so that first healing session in Turkey was my first kind of understanding how important it is. That you do address the body. The body is part of you. It's part of, it's not separate from your soul. It's part of your soul. And so that was my first inkling that I needed to start addressing the body. And then last year, last year, I kept getting the knowledge that I needed to go back to the body. And I couldn't figure out what it was. I joined a gym, still kept getting the calling. Every time I'm in meditation, I get these knowings. Uh. You know, like I call it God talking to me. But I was like, okay, there's something going on. I need to do something about my body. And of course, universe delivers when you ask.'cause I, I was literally talking to God one day and I said, I get the message I need to work on my body. I have no idea what to do next. Please help. And the next day, I kid you not, I get an email from this guy I randomly follow, and he says, I have a treat for you. I'm offering a free masterclass on a Sufi somatic healer. Uh, tomorrow. So I was like, of course I've gotta join. So I joined and I met the most incredible, amazing Sufi healer who I'm very, very honored to call a really good friend now. His name is Musa and I will actually be interviewing him on the next podcast because I think it's so important for him to be able to share his story and also give us insight into this hold. Spirituality and Neurodivergence combination because he also is neurodivergent and he's given me so many pearls of wisdom. I don't even know where to start, but I'm gonna let him share those with you. All of this backstory was to tell you about the importance of somatic work. The importance of spirituality. And so to recap, my spiritual path began with mindfulness and non-dual secularity. I forgot to add that piece. I did chase a lot of non-duality teachers for a while as well at Car Rupert Spra, or two of my favorites, and then ended that day that I remembered I was a Sufi. So this radical path of love, as Sufism is often called, has been my greatest savior as I've mentioned. As I have become more and more immersed into my spirituality and have kind of woven that into my professional side, I've realized that my true passion, which is what I wanna focus on from now on, is the intersection of spirituality and neurodivergence. Like I mentioned earlier, my main traditional job is adult assessment for autism and A DHD mostly of women. And then I also do coaching or spiritual mentoring on the side. But slowly over time, it's become more and more intertwined to the point that most of my coaching or mentoring clients tend to be neurodivergent, either diagnosed or undiagnosed. It doesn't matter to me, and most of the clients who come into my world for assessment tend to be in the woo woo. And you know, I told you I've put that kind of in my website. As these two worlds have merged, I've come to the understanding that this is no surprise. I am attracting exactly the kinds of clients with whom I wanna work. They're open to their spirituality, and they know that they're here to do more. And as my level of consciousness has risen, so has my understanding of the importance of neurodivergence in this current world paradigm. If you are into spirituality, you will understand this next section. This sets the background for the podcast as you do the spiritual work, the personal growth work, exploring your shadows, finding your triggers, understanding that we are all mirrors of each other and we're working through the, those issues that crop up when we see something in somebody else that we don't like as we're clearing the trauma that's stored in our body as we do all of this work. We start clearing the vessel, which is the body in order to be able to receive. So the divine God, mother nature, the quantum works best through clear vessels or channels, if you will, and as I have slowly cleared my channel, emptied the meat suit as I like to call it. I have had a lot of knowing. About the importance and value of Neurodivergence in this world. This is my soul's calling, and I feel that so strongly. One of the most profound understandings was that neurodivergent beings come into this world at much higher levels of consciousness. So if neurotypical people come in at 3D levels. Neurodivergent people come in at four to five D if you're going by levels of consciousness, by, I think David Hawkins did those levels. Once you understand that, you realize why neurodivergent children have such a difficult time fitting in with their neurotypical peers. Often you'll see that neurodivergent children prefer much younger children or much older adults to hang out with because those are the people who ha tend to have, because those are the people who tend to have higher levels of consciousness. Also, you may have heard that neurodivergent children like to spin a lot. As a Sufi dervish, I was taught that whirling creates an energy vortex that leads to higher levels of consciousness. So neurodivergent children already know how to go to God, and yet we try to tell them that's wrong. And as adults we literally have to learn something that neurodivergent children know naturally. So coming back to my own case, I was a late diagnosed A DHD as I said, and once I realized that I was able to look back at my life through a completely different lens, the impulsive urge to follow my interest at the time, the desire to create multiple different businesses, have tons of hobbies, the impulsivity, the internal agitation to always be moving. The restlessness. All these traits took on new meaning, and I also gave myself more self-compassion once I recognized that this is my neurotype and this is how it works in the spiritual sense. As I've evolved on this journey, I've really embraced my A DHD and how it allows me to collapse time and live in multiple timelines at the same time. So a wise mentor of mine told me this, and this is Musa again. He told me this about a year ago and I didn't really quite understand at the time, but I really get it now. I'm gonna be interviewing again, like I said, for the next podcast, so I will let him explain it in more detail. But he described this to me as a beautiful whirling Sufi dance where you effortlessly stop during the dance to pick up something or do something, and then just as effortlessly put it down, keep whirling. Or spinning, and you stop to pick up something else and then you put it down and so on. So it becomes a beautiful, endless whirling dance of effortlessness and peace. So prior to my really embracing my neurotype, I would struggle with which project or hobby to focus on, when to move on and when to pick it up again. Everything felt unfinished, undone, and I felt a lot of guilt and frustration, some hopelessness. However, now it feels like a beautiful, endless whirling dance of effortlessness and peace, and I know it's an ongoing journey. So in between my interviews with other people who are navigating this incredible intersection of Neurodivergence, sp, and sp this incredible intersection of neurodivergence and spirituality, I will do some informational podcasts on practices that help us integrate these two worlds. I'll have different healers on talking about somatic healing, breath work and other practices, which I feel are particularly helpful for neurodivergent individuals. That's it for now, so thank you so much for listening to me listening about my story, and I hope that you have a beautiful time in your neuro divine. Thank you for spending time inside the NeuroD Divine. If this episode nourished you, please share it with someone who needs this medicine. And if you feel called kindly, leave a review. It helps this work reach more sensitive sacred minds. Until next time, may you walk gently, breathe deeply, and trust your divine design.