Today we’d like to introduce you to Maryam Elbalghiti-Williams.
Hi Maryam, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My work as a culturally-conscious therapist and consultant is deeply interwoven with my own experiences and identities. Whether in the therapy room or training space, I center the ways intersectional identities inform our experience. I’m used to straddling different worlds as a “mixed”, second generation immigrant who was raised in halves – half Arab, half white, half Mennonite, half Muslim, half bilingual, and half confused most of the time growing up. I’m also a mama and partner in a multicultural family, raising empowered multiracial Black girls. So basically I spend most of my waking hours and dinner time conversations talking about the tough stuff of race, culture, oppression, and mental wellness. I’m on a mission to empower women to break cycles of trauma and misattunement across generations and families. My own experience wading deeply through personal intergenerational wounds is the foundation for my work holding space for diverse women excavating their own histories to make change in the present. Women are uniquely positioned as mothers, partners, sisters, and leaders to revolutionize how we relate to one another in our families and communities. It is this conviction that spurred me to open my own private practice in 2021.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I would say that externally, it looked like a smooth road opening and running my practice –but internally I grappled with self-limiting beliefs holding me back. Especially in the first six months of my practice, I confronted old stories about self, money, and what is means to be a “good social worker” as I set out to build a private pay practice. Women who are professional helpers are often shamed for demanding fair pay for their work especially when that work is emotional labor. Learning to get comfortable with charging fees for my services was a difficult but transformational learning experience. Now I feel proud of my work and financial practices that allow me to prioritize my own health as someone with multiple chronic health conditions as well as the health and wellness of my family.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Maryam Yasmin Therapy & Consulting ?
As a clinician, trainer, and cross-cultural facilitator I’m passionate about helping individuals, groups, and organizations foster radical safety, authenticity, and connection for themselves, their families, and their work.
Maryam Yasmin Therapy & Consulting is a boutique private practice and consulting firm obsessed with culture. I center the way culture manifests across multiple systems from the personal to the professional.
We all carry culture and make culture. We carry our embodied intersectional identities and ancestry that make up our present socio-cultural landscape but we also make culture when we get together with other people, including friends, family, and workplaces.
Here’s where I come in, whether through therapy, professional development, or organizational consulting, I help the people and groups I work with co-create expansively inclusive cultures that are supported, safe, and vibrant.
What matters most to you? Why?
Living a life in alignment with my values matters most to me. As someone who has experienced immense grief in my life as well as manages invisible disability from conditions that cause chronic pain, I’ve learned that the purpose of life is not to find happiness. In the West, “happiness” is the goal and the trap. Most cultures of the Global South do not define success by how happy they are — no, they accept the reality that life is difficult and we find meaning through our relationships, connections, and spiritual practice. When we take actions in alignment with values, we can do hard things and be resilient in the face of pain.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.maryamyasmintherapy.com/
