My Bio
I was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and lived in Boston, Massachusetts, USA from 2008 to 2018 to train as a counseling psychologist before returning to Dubai. I have 7.5 years experience working in the US and UAE with people aged 18+ of diverse cultural and class backgrounds which included American and UAE citizens, refugees, immigrants, UAE expats, adult children of immigrants and expats, and those who grew up in culturally blended families or identify as "third culture kids." Most people have consulted me for difficult life transitions, relationship difficulties, work stress, toxic office cultures, trauma, grief, depression, anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, personal development, self understanding, and crises in meaning-making, cultural identity, and spirituality. I further have past experience advising a UAE-based mental health startup.
An ongoing theme I have noticed in both countries I have lived in is how many people lack meaningful supportive relationships, especially when it comes to stigmatized topics, and are disconnected from a sense of place. I further noticed how long working hours limited people's ability to be meaningfully present in their social connections which would strain their relationships. I also saw how many people frequently moved between neighborhoods, cities, and countries to access better opportunities, or financial stability after being priced out of where they live, or safety in the face of rising global violence. But this level of transience can make it difficult for people to establish a sense of belonging or to feel as motivated to connect with others.
The mental health field has emphasized how important connection to community is for our long-term mental and physical wellbeing, for healing if we are already experiencing mental distress, for our sense of meaning in life, and for bouncing back after facing trauma. Yet it has done little to address what can we do as a community to tackle people's disconnection from each other as we as individuals can only do so much. While psychotherapy and self care are important and lifesaving, relying on them without having quality supportive relationships is like expecting that vitamin supplements and medicines will replace access to nutritious food.
All these insights had me start a newsletter called Belonging Co-Lab on February 2024. These insights also had me want to pursue a career in public health to explore how to develop and evaluate peer support programs for people living in cities with largely transient demographics. In January 2025, I co-founded one of the few active UAE-based public health networking groups called the UAE Public Health Connection which is still open to new members (membership is free).
Throughout my work in the counseling field, I was more interested in how people make meaning out of their lives and in how they want to grow and the values and relationships that nourish them as opposed to "fixing" them. I believe that focusing on "fixes" can stigmatize parts of our human experience which includes painful ones. So often what we label as a "mental health disorder" is our body's way of alerting us to a human experience we have been shaming away instead of learning from it. "Fixing" also assumes that the only valid option is to go back to how one used to be. But problems may be invitations to grow in a different direction and I am more interested in supporting people and communities through that process of growth. These are the values I tried to stay close to as a counseling psychologist and I hope to continue doing so in my new career in public health.