Honest Tea Talk co-host Sumayah Hassan

She is none other than the co-host of Honest Tea Talk . In her words , she is a faith-based relationship mentor living in London , uk , with clients globally . She has created a haven for heartbreak to offer Muslim women a safe place to heal , develop emotional and relational intelligence .

She is a mom to four small humans , also affectionately known as the party people . She loves the Quran and describes it as a part of her . She can't imagine the world without it . She offers workshops on building a relationship with the Book of Allah at Recite and Reflect .

Like I said , she's also a co-host on Honest Tea Talk and the voice behind her own podcast . Sincerely , Samaya , without further delay , I welcome you to listen to an invigorating interview with Sister Samaya Hassan . As always , please listen for useful thoughts that you can borrow . Inshallah , you guys will benefit a lot from this .

Assalamualaikum , I have Sister Samaya Hassan with me and I am so honored to speak to you , meet you for the first time face-to-face . I've been following you for I don't even want to admit for how long really . All of your work including starting with Honest Tea Talk is when I got introduced to your work has been extremely influential . Welcome .

I started a project called Haven for Heartbreak to work with women who are going through heartbreak in the Muslim community , and this was born out of my own experience and seeing what it's like in that environment and kind of alhamdulillah , I was blessed to be surrounded by amazing sisters , and I know that that's not something that everyone has .

And so when I opened up the opportunity , it started organically with sisters , kind of saying you know , there's a sister who's really struggling , do you think you can speak to her ? And it just kind of blossomed from there and grew um , I am a mom of four , alhamdulillah .

I am an American and I live in London and have clients all around the world , alhamdulillah .

They're usually in survival mode , they're struggling to cope , there's a lot of shame and uncertainty around what's going on with them , and I think one of the key things that unifies them , like irrespective of the reason , is that they feel the sense of aloneness and that they're not able to reach out to their immediate circle for support , either because they're too

close to the situation they're unable to advise them in an objective and unbiased way , or they sometimes feel as though , because their family members aren't experiencing what they're going through , they kind of want to rush them out of it . Hurry up . Aren't you over this yet ? Aren't you done ? Why are you still having such a hard time ?

And I think having that kind of external support is important at that time for them , especially if it's someone who's been through what they've been through or can relate and support them specifically through that .

If anything , you yourself and your relationship with the last one , with our life , if everything else fails , is there , and then for them to , I guess , start healing inside out and seeing that they do have a support network where they originally thought they might not have had it .

And you even said when you started in your own career that you had a support network of your own sister which helped you blossom . So why this career ? Like I think , alhamdulillah , as women in developed countries , we have a lot of options . Why this line of work ?

So initially , you know , on , like , my presence on social media started teaching , recite and reflect , doing Quran and Tadabbur , and even though that was a , like , a religious class , essentially what came to be we talk about connecting with the Quran was that everybody was bringing their personal challenges and life issues to the process because , at the end of the

day , we're people and and that's our real life is what we're going through on a day-to-day basis . And , um , and going through this experience myself , um , I transitioned from being a thinking person who's strictly you you know rational and existed in my mind , to coming into my own emotions and going through this whole process .

And so , panela , when something like this happens to you , I think it's very easy to feel that this is just a terrible thing that's happening to me and that , in my experience , in my life and with the people I've seen around me . It almost always is guiding you to something more . It's training you . It's teaching you , it's shaping you into the next thing .

So , for me , I just flow with what comes next . And this was where I came to the work around relationships and healing . Work became the next step for me . I didn't seek it out , it just I came to it . It became the next step for me . I didn't seek it out , it just I came to it . It became the next thing yeah , so that's how I ended up here .

You're so much at ease with that because there's a certain rigidity in a person who's strictly , let's say , coming from a rational perspective . I used to do that , but now I don't do this . Why don't I do that ? And there's so much questioning , always second guessing of is this the right thing to do ?

Should I be doing something other than what I'm already doing ? So it's something finding a fault with what is , rather than just embracing where you are and becoming good at what you're doing and just accepting the things as they are around you .

And it's such a there's such a fluidity and a flexibility and almost a femininity to that quality and that's really refreshing to notice . So you also mentioned being strictly of a rational mind and then coming to emotional work , which is something I talk about a lot in this podcast , and that was definitely a journey for me , journey towards improvement .

That has definitely , overall , improved my well-being when people are originally starting with this work , especially if they have a history of relational trauma . They seem to be disconnected from their emotions and they are living head and body separate and just mostly living in their thoughts and looping in rationalization of their circumstances .

How can they first help to transition themselves let's say they don't have access to a coach or a mentor like yourself how can they help themselves ease into just experiencing their body ? And how would they know what is right or not ?

I was not grounded in my body , I was not aware of my patterns or anything that was happening internally . I think I just stayed busy enough to not have to look at it or face it .

So I think , building a basic sense of awareness , learning to pay attention to what's going on inside , and kind of cultivating a pause For me that started with meditation , just training myself to be still enough to notice the simple practice you know in the beginning of a meditation , of doing like a body scan and just paying attention , learning how to move your

attention from your breath to sound outside of your body and just learning how to tune into what's going on inside . And I think the next kind of big breakthrough for me was doing inner child work , connecting with , you know , the younger version of me . I felt like my child self is this bundle of emotions , like it's .

It's as if she's all feeling and the adult was all thinking um . So getting in touch with that was a huge thing . It was like the floodgates opened .

They can't rationalize , they don't have language , but they communicate through their emotions and it's always a solid grounding to want to go back to that and just rediscover what you lost while you were developing a rational brain , because language kind of suppresses that and this whole notion of not being able to get in touch with your emotions , because first you

want to just suppress them by doing , doing , doing , always staying busy and then becoming afraid of the stillness because you either get labeled as lazy why aren't you doing this ? Why aren't you doing that ?

Either by external criticism or your own internal voices , criticism and besides that it develops over time , develops into a condition of alexithymia where you can't even recognize an emotion , maybe just basic emotions like sadness , happiness , fear , but above that , like emotions create your life .

You completely lose the plot on trying to create a wonderful , a full spectrum life and to me that was my difficulty as well . It was hard for me to slow down enough to notice things happening with my body . Just being still would , as you referred to it , would provoke a sympathetic response in me and be like fight and flight . Fight and flight .

It would be like okay , no , this is not , not correct , I'm not used to this , let's get out of here .

that direction and we're celebrated for our achievements and we're celebrated for actually uh , staying in our minds .

It's encouraged to . You know , having an emotional outburst or reacting to things or being too easily moved is considered a flaw . So we were kind of doing what we were taught to do , essentially , isn't it ?

And it's not , it's not just hustle mentality , it's not just okay doing , doing , doing , also listening to yourself and moving forward with mindfulness . Absolutely . What , would you say , is something that people misunderstand the most about your work .

I think that it's funny that they feel compelled to try and make themselves the center of the story . But it's not really about the other people . When someone comes to work on themselves , it's about the individual who's coming , and their development and their growth is going to impact their relationships and everything else after that .

So I think that's that's a big one . Another one is probably that any kind of you know healing work or or relational work comes in a time of crisis . That when there's about to be a divorce , now we should talk about getting help .

When there's about to be a breakdown or something drastic happens , you know , in a marriage or in a relationship , people feel as though now is the time to try and patch it up , instead of seeing it as an ongoing way of looking after yourself . Like you have a personal trainer , a dermatologist and a therapist , like it's .

It should just be , you know , a matter , of course , but I think we're getting there culturally in some circles , but we still have a long way to go .

It's just because you're empowering one does not mean you're disempowering the other . If anything , an empowered woman can probably bring a lot more strength to the relationship , and that's something that I also see a lot .

Um , and that ayah comes to mind in surah nisa , where it says that men are appointed over you , and a lot of times it gets mistranslated as controller , when it's supposed to be maintainer or provider , and it really stems from the provider's own insecurity .

If they're bringing that to their relationship , then it becomes about controlling the other person in the relationship . Is that something you experience in your work ? Is that ?

I think it rings really true in the sense that there is a lot of I'd almost call it like you feel , like there's this power struggle , there's a grapple for control , and it's something I see even in young adults who aren't even married yet , talking about the process of getting married . It's this great negotiation about mahr and rights .

Young adults who aren't even married yet talking about the process of getting married . It's this great negotiation about mahr and rights .

And you haven't even gotten into a relationship and you already want to argue about what you're going to get and what you have to give and trying to get away with the minimum amount and feeling like you're not being taken advantage of . And I just think that both sides have kind of taken a posture of fear . It's not a partnership .

We're not coming together to build our future . It's more like I have to protect myself so you don't take advantage of me . And this is before even getting married .

And I do think that you know , unfortunately , there's a history of using religious scripture or you know , I think , on the women's part , a lack of knowledge and understanding of what these things really mean what these ayat mean , what the rights of a woman are , that they're being taken advantage of in the name of the faith and that's , you know , that's spiritual

abuse and it's unfortunate that it happens , but I think that it is . It's definitely real .

I think if they're working with someone who is an expert in this and who's actually talking about the day-to-day and some of the core issues around compatibility , people's routines , upbringing , expectations , alignment around finances and you know goals and vision for the future , having a real conversation , because I have also seen the other kind of premarital counseling

which is just like a nice chat with the imam . Why do we get married ? We want to go to Jannah like very , you know , very superficial kind of we just it's . It's a nice activity , but I don't know how effective it is in preparing anyone for the reality of what they're about to set into .

And I think that you know , in the work that you do , in the work that I do , speaking about the reality of what a marriage is , to temper the next generation's expectations and , I think , just be more more honest about what marriage actually is , instead of presenting it as this cure .

All and you know , know the highest possible goal that a young person could aspire to in their lifetime , especially our daughters you know , telling them that that is their sole focus and like purpose for existence , like you had mentioned . Um , so yeah , I think .

and the bad , just like you are your own mixed bag of the good and the bad .

And when you come in to a relationship thinking that this person is just going to solve all your problems , it puts a lot of undue burden on the relationship itself and , like you say , then you become more walled off , more protective , more of a controlled stance , rather than okay , I'm fulfilled the way I am .

Let me see what I can bring to the relationship to strengthen it , because then it becomes about family unit is basically a cultural unit .

It becomes about the next generation , how the Amma then proceeds from there on , which is why I do believe , which is why it's so heavily emphasized in our tradition , to maintain these ties and to protect them , but again , not at a cost of the guise of abuse , absolutely Not at a cost of the mental health or well-being of the woman or the man in the

relationship . What do you personally do for your , let's say personal development , outside of all of these endeavors ?

I like to keep my pulse on the conversation and what's going on , not that I take on everything that I hear wholesale , but just to be able to even if I don't necessarily agree , to be able to kind of run through . It's really important to me . I've constantly I'm working on a new version of myself . You know Sumaya 7.0 .

You know I like an identity-based approach . I feel like that works best for me . You know , um , I am the kind of person who is very important to me and I I'm constantly refining and editing things out and adding things in it's . It's this ongoing project .

So I was listening to one of your recent podcasts and you mentioned that how people mistakenly replace an entire village with one person in a relationship and they expect them to fulfill our needs , and that , I think , was so beautifully worded and it kind of stuck with me and I wanted to .

I wanted you to elaborate on that a little bit more of how we can cultivate relationships with our daughters , with our young sisters , so they don't go into marriage or relationship or looking for a partner expecting these or having these types of false notions that are based on really weak foundations of just societal expectations .

How can we kind of give them a more solid , faith-based grounding ?

I think for many people , when you speak to them and you ask them did you see healthy marital relationships growing up ? Can you think of someone in your mind that jumps to mind as a healthy marriage , as a beautiful connection .

It's not as straightforward and easy for them to do as we would hope , so I think , for us to actually live that first and be able to show them what's normal and what's acceptable .

I think that leaning on one person you know is sometimes it's culturally encouraged , like it's .

you know , sometimes you're told that once you become a married woman's place is her home you know , this type of language and I think that it leads to a lot of women reaching a point where they have their families , they have their homes , but they've let go of so much of who they are as people .

They've let go of their interests , hobbies , certain aspects of their personality . They kind of edit themselves down to like a shadow of what they were before , and that is the worst possible message that we could be giving our girls is that it's not acceptable for them to be whole and to be their own person .

Um , I think that and as well as um , you know , because it's two-sided if , if , if she's a wife who feels that she should be dedicating her entire life to the marriage , then she would also feel slighted when her husband is not doing the same and he has his life , even though males are encouraged to kind of have their own world and you know he plays

basketball on Saturdays and he does Juma with the you know he's allowed , it's acceptable , but for her I think it would lead to that resentment because she doesn't have permission to do it herself . So it would have that positive impact , like you were saying in the beginning , when you take care of yourself and you have your boundaries in the right place .

I think it has a knock-on effect in every area .

But it's always good for , like you say , it's always good to kind of provoke that thought process , that just question , even if it's coming from your most loved ones , that you're supposed to be breathing , eating , living and dying in your husband's house .

From now on , there is another possibility and you don't have to use that as just a license to put up with abuse . You have other opportunities .

So there's a lot of questioning of what narrative you've been taught all your life and really giving yourself permission to question it just because it came from somebody older than you , just because you think they're more experienced .

Give yourself permission to question it and be present with that type of cognitive dissonance and find a support network that helps you grow as a person , rather than just completely be buried in this rubble of whatever's being thrown at you .

One of the things that I come up against with client work is that people feel it's a betrayal to their parents if they were to consider traumatic experiences or areas where they struggled or where their parents could have done better and , like you said , to be able to question something that was in the family culture , a norm , feels like they're being critical or

disrespectful to their parents and so they don't want to explore that . And it's always about saying you know , we are objectively looking at a historical event . It's not to point fingers or lay blame or say that your parents were bad people as human beings .

You went through a particular experience and now you're learning how to handle it and attach meaning in a positive way . So you know , asking these questions is not a sign of disrespect or unkindness towards your elders or parents .

And then we kind of reconcile it in the middle , but that between this black and white there's a lot of gray that we haven't explored . How can you voice your own opinion and be respectful to your parents ? Maybe they're not used to ever hearing somebody standing up for themselves .

Maybe it will be refreshing for them that you are such a strong woman , or becoming a strong young lady , or just asking for your basic rights from your husband , if that's what it comes down to , and this whole notion that when you are asking for something that is your right , you are being critical or disrespectful of somebody who didn't teach you these basic

things . And a lot of it is kind of , in my opinion , rooted in the same fear-based mentality where any independence of a woman is kind of perceived as , oh , she doesn't know how to handle her own mistakes , or she doesn't know how to carry herself in the world , or if she's independent .

That's kind of a open invitation to , let's say , promiscuity or not being modest , especially with financial independence . A lot of that is feared that okay , as long as she has or as soon as she gains some financial independence , she might make mistakes that are irreversible .

I think it is also part of it is kind of the community and the society attaches these negative connotations to things like you said , somebody having financial independence or being educated or you know things that they consider to be like a gateway to problematic behavior or becoming a particular kind of , you know , troublesome woman or whatever they would call it .

And I think that it doesn't necessarily need to be the case , like you said , with the black and white thinking , and it's kind of like that is the critical voice of people who like to maintain the status quo and keep everyone in line .

It just sounds like what they would say to someone who tries to do something that they consider to be out of the norm or the ordinary or you know we never used to say this or do this or make these decisions like you are , so that means that what you're doing is wrong and thus unacceptable , but I think that you know it's .

I'm grateful that this generation is definitely , you know , the young adults that are definitely kind of taking a step and there is a sense that they are different than those before and they feel almost , I think , entitled in some ways to have this difference , which is a good thing , and I feel maybe our generation was in between .

We were between the old and the new , and so maybe they're going to have a head start on that . But I think it's really really important to you know as individuals , especially as women , to be able to kind of tune into their intuition and get really clear about what they want and what they need , because there's a lot , there's a lot of um .

You know conflicting voices and advisors and people who are weighing in on your decision making , and so many of us have been raised in an environment where we weren't taught to have an opinion and speak up and check in with how we feel and what we need , and so we're not used to it .

It may feel strange , but with practice you will learn to tune in to what's going on for you , because it's really hard , I think , to navigate life and make huge decisions if you don't know how to listen to yourself , if you don't know what you actually want .

And in that trying to fit that box of what the society expects you to fit , you lose track of how to listen to your own voice , even if it's screaming at you , of how to listen to your own voice even if it's screaming at you , and then you forget to trust yourself and then you blame yourself for making humanly , mistakes which everyone makes , including men ,

including , I mean everyone makes humanly . What do you think right now is the most common problem that you're presented with in your work when it comes to relationships ?

Many of them haven't had relationships in the past , so this is their first time around and they're trying to figure out how to navigate this process . Most of them are in the West Muslim families and they have to reconcile between their culture and their environment .

Feeling like they were trying to do the right thing by , you know , being , you know , a good girl , and getting up to this stage , and feeling , uh , that they're struggling when it comes to , uh , finding someone and even if they are meeting people , um , being able to speak up about what's a priority for them , dealing with pressure from family to make a decision

one way or the other criteria , standards . I think all of these are really big , big points right now .

It's important because we sort of kind of a stepstone for them , our generation , and then they have more access to information . So it's a good thing , in a way , depending on how you use it . It can always be a great thing if you're able to make sense of everything that's out there and reconcile your religious values with the environment .

Before we end this and I really it's been such an honor and such a delight speaking to you so very insightful . It's opening so many gates in my head to continue to explore more of these topics .

I want to ask you one last thing is when you're carrying yourself , what is one thought that comes to you that you hang on to the most , or that you revisit , or kind of to anchor yourself again and again when you're creating a life that you're currently living , what do you keep going back to as a sentence or as a thought or as a belief system that you

think might help our listeners ?

I feel very strongly about knowing that Allah sees me and knows me , and I think it grounds me in the sense that , whatever people outside of you think of you or say or make of you , I feel like I know what I'm really about and I know that Allah knows what I'm really made of .

And after that , being able to look in the mirror , I really struggle with feeling like I'm out of alignment or I'm living in a way that's not true to form and that is important to me . You know you should be making life decisions as much as humanly possible , to the extent that you feel that you are comfortable in yourself .

You did the best you could and you can look yourself in the mirror . You are not betraying yourself , you're not selling yourself short , letting yourself down , and you're not putting other people's requests , demands , definitions , above what you know inside of yourself to be real and true , and it's .

It goes back to being connected to intuition , awareness'ala , and just feeling like I'm doing my square best .

It doesn't happen overnight , especially if you haven't listened to yourself your entire life , but going back to listening to yourself and just fine-tuning what worked , what didn't work work , and then forgiving mistakes in the process and having the wakul that , whatever happens , whatever you decide , nothing really wrong ever happens .

Even if a decision seems wrong , it's everything's eventually from Allah SWT and trusting yourself within the process .

And interesting that in the entire thought process that you just gave me , it was about trusting yourself and then focusing it back on Allah and just going back and forth , which is very much in line with what I teach as well , and it's again refreshing to notice that there are people out there that are teaching this and perpetuating this type of mentality , and

really for the betterment of the ummah .

I reject most of my invitations to do things but , true to form , I was listening to you and I felt that you care deeply about them and your work is truly about uplifting them and making their lives better in a way that matters .

I could hear it in your voice , I could hear it in your words and I can't tell you how many people who are in the coaching and personal development sphere are really business people about selling a product and pushing something , and I did not feel that I was happy to hear every time you mentioned a workshop , every time you mentioned something you taught , and I

thought I feel comfortable here and your space feels welcome and it feels true and I wanted to commend you for that .

That is , that is my work , that is my duty , I feel in my own personal development journey , I don't sit still either , and I think this is the next stage in my life where I've gone through the grind of do , do , do always be proving yourself , always proving yourself worth to others , and and it was just like breaking me apart .

And when I came to this work , I was like no , this cannot be kept a secret , and how can I make it available to the masses and not be about just earning or making it a hobby or anything of the sorts Like this is .

This cannot stay on the sidelines , and I dedicated a major part of my life to this work after that , and I appreciate your compliments on that . Thank you so much . You're most welcome . You're most welcome . As you guys heard , that was my conversation with Sister Sumayya Hassan .

She showered me with her wisdom , her beautiful words , her compliments , all out of the goodness of her heart , and may Allah bless her and her work and I pray you guys found it beneficial . All of her work is available online .

I will leave the links in the show notes , including her Haven for Heartbreak offer for Muslim women and her Quran workshops , including her ebook , where she shares pearls of wisdom from the Quran . I had a chance to read it on my flight one day . It's a truly phenomenal resource .

Utilize the links in the show notes and I hope you guys get to implement all of the beautiful thoughts that she shared with us . Remember , the difference between you and your success is the gap of the mindset , and the mindset is practiced one thought at a time .

So , if anything , just adopt one thought out of this whole podcast and , inshallah , over time , piling up these thoughts is going to create a success mindset . Please keep me in your du'as . I will talk to you guys next time .