Faith and Spirituality

You may have arrived here because…

You need someone with specialised knowledge about how to care for a fellow Muslim well. I know from experience how hard it can be to find a Muslim counsellor, Muslim psychologist, or Muslim therapist.
The Muslim community you normally lean on might not support your journey navigating leading you to feel alone in your process.
You may be afraid that you’re headed in the wrong direction and feel the need to keep your questions or doubts a secret.
When you seek support from the community, you might be told to pray, make Dua, or read the Quran rather than receiving the depth of engagement that you need.
You might feel isolated from your spouse, partner, family, or friends as you feel like you might be the only one experiencing this.

However you arrived here, I’m so glad you’re here. Read on to see if my Faith and Spirituality counselling services might help you.

As a Muslim, you need support just as much as everyone else, if not more.

As a Muslim community, we are not immune to faith and spiritual issues. Particularly young Muslims. We are just as likely or in fact, more vulnerable in experiencing issues in our everyday lives for numerous reasons:

Islamophobia and hostility.
Racism, discrimination, bullying, and profiling.
Identity confusion: Muslim-ness vs. Western-ness
Bad experiences at home, at the mosque and with other Muslims.
Many young Muslims find being Islamophobic while being Muslim is easier.
Outer Islamic covering increases ongoing harassment, intimidation, and physical violence.
Challenges accessing health care due to non-Muslims subconscious biases.
Lower levels of mental health literacy, decreased recognition of mental health problems and misattribution of symptoms, not recognising that it is stress related.
Isolation from the community, and lack of good role models for adolescents, teenagers, children and youth.
Lacking in Islamic knowledge: Islam is life and knowledge is life-support.

You might pretend that nothing is going on internally for the sake of not stirring the pot or losing your close connections.

Or you might cope by completely withdrawing from your community – too afraid to face any potential shaming from your loved ones.

Or you may have bravely attempted to let your friends and family into your faith-related questions, only to have been let down by disappointing or harmful responses from them.

If this is you: you need a space where you are allowed to safely explore all of your wonderings, questions, concerns, and doubts. You need to feel seen in your process.

And most importantly, you need someone willing to walk alongside you – wherever your journey might take you.

I welcome wherever you are in your faith and spiritual journey.

I see your faith-related questions and doubts as a healthy part of your development.

I like to create space for you to safely explore your faith-related questions, and help you navigate the ways that being in this space impacts your day-to-day life, relationships, and interactions with your broader community.

When we go through worldview-shifting experiences, it can feel incredibly disorienting. I help you identify the core pieces of who you are that remain unwavering throughout your faith journey, so you can continue to feel grounded amidst the changes you experience.

Services include:

Spiritual Counselling, Spiritual Mentoring: nourishing and purification of the Nafs and faith deconstruction (i.e., losing faith).
Cultural and Identity counselling: diversity, refugee, racism, discrimination, Islamophobia, Xenophobia.

A note on faith and spiritual deconstruction

I’ve found that Muslims who ask questions about their faith are not seeking out a reason to tear their faith apart. Rather, their commitment to their faith combined with events or experiences that don’t align with faith as they’ve known it forces the need to dig into some important questions where they gained this knowledge.

In time, with dedication, a supportive community, and the help of me as your counsellor, you’ll arrive at a new space where your faith is reconstructed, and you feel stable again Insha’Allah.