Talk with Dr Serene Shereef

I am starting a series where I will be interviewing very successful Muslim women that practice mind management at some level or another . Which is the secret behind their success in the world ? Today I will be interviewing Dr Sirin Sharif , a very good friend of mine .

Dr Sirin Sharif is a trauma acute care surgeon and a mindfulness and productivity coach who helps exhausted professional moms struggling with burnout and overwhelm to take control of their time , mind and energy .

Her MAPS Mindful and Productivity Systems Framework is a powerful tool that combines the energy of mindfulness with the scientific principles of habit building and your unique systems of productivity . Her goals are to help you discover clarity , design your dream life and build nano-habits as well as mindful productivity systems that helps you live your best life .

You can contact Dr Suri Sharif at serenitywellnessmd at gmailcom or through her website at serenitywellnessmdcom . She also has a multitude of free services to help you get started with your mindfulness and productivity journey , including mindfulness and productivity systems podcast , a Facebook support group and a YouTube channel .

I will leave the link in the show notes , but during this interview , I want you to pay extra close attention to what thoughts and feelings you can borrow to drive actions in your life that can then create successful results for you .

As my listener , all throughout the interview , you will notice that I will be pointing out different thoughts that I am going to borrow myself , and please take advantage of this time that I spend with this beautiful soul , dr Serene Sharif . Okay , assalamualaikum , I have Dr Serene Sharif here . How are you ?

They got along very well and we hung out in Orlando for one day and it was just a magical day . Thank you so much for that . So I want to start out just with a little bit of an introduction of what you do and how many hats do you wear and why you do all of those things sure , absolutely um , and thank you as well .

You know , I've been so grateful to know you and there's so many ways that you know we have really connected , not just with all the work that we do , but then also our children are so , you know , close in age and just some of the fun things they like to do . And it was really a magical time in Orlando .

So I guess everything in Orlando has to have a little extra sparkle in them . And when I think about the hats that I wear , it's really , you know , I am actually trying to create a single hat that I wear . So that's . I'll explain more in a little bit , but just generally for everyone to kind of get to know me , I am a syringe relief .

I'm a trauma acute care surgeon . I used to work full time but now work part time and I have three children ages 8 , 13 , and 17 in a couple of months . So I am , I'm living the elementary , middle and high school all at once and soon , I guess , the college adventure , inshallah .

So , with all of the hats that we wear , what I found is that it's really easy for our brain to keep telling us that we're overwhelmed , and I lived in overwhelm for a long time . I thought that that was the only option .

I really didn't know that it could be any different and in fact , I would say it started during my surgical training , my residency , but definitely during practice I experienced a lot of burnout and just feeling like I you know I am I'm barely keeping it together in all areas and , just , you know , feeling just that deep sense of unhappiness and I wasn't sure why

. I had a lot of anxieties and unhappiness and you know , it's just really kind of struggling with that area and what ended up happening ?

Really , you know , it's just really kind of struggling with that area and what ended up happening really , you know , I thought it was the worst thing that could happen , but it ended up being the best thing and really , what helped me is I hit that point where I literally felt like I could not take a step , another step forward .

You know , I couldn't keep doing what I was doing , and so I ended up handing in my resignation and taking some time off to figure out what I wanted to do and , and you know , I .

Then I started to teach medical students , I started doing surgery part time and I found myself again doing the juggling act and I'm telling myself how is it possible that I'm still , you know , like ? I still feel like I'm getting burnt out because I just had never learned to say no .

So when people ask me for something or for help , or can you do this project , can you do that activity , like ? I just never learned how to manage my own mind around time . So I would say , with all of this , what I learned is that I can only wear one hat at a time .

So really , by connecting to mindfulness and being present and connecting to that one hat that I wear each time , I feel like that is probably what really helped me stay focused and do what I love , but in a way that is human and kind to myself .

Because the concept of just wearing one hat , because , especially as women , we are being pulled in all different directions and , like you say , you can hand in a resignation from your full-time job but then you'll end up doing the same juggling act in different areas of your life Because , like you say , the key is that you never really learn to manage the mind ,

which is what needed to happen , and I'm glad that it did for you . I mean , it sounds like that it did for you , but I'd like to explore that more . But I also want to explore what you said was very interesting and I think it's going to benefit a lot of my listeners is about . You never knew that overwhelm was optional .

Can you explain why that is and how do we create that over and over again if we have a choice of not creating it ? Let's say , if you do want a high productive life , like somebody of a trauma surgeon or a job of a CEO or somebody that's supposedly in a high performance type of a job , then is is overwhelm a choice yeah .

I mean people think , oh , it's my husband , or it's my job , or it's my kids . And you think , by changing your external circumstances , you know what is around you that somehow things will be different in the future . And I thought so too .

You know , and it's normal because that's what we hear from everyone around us oh , it's just your work , you know , it'll get better when you get better when you get graduate . You know college , you'll get better when you graduate residency , you'll get better when you graduate residency .

But we all have a baseline way of thought and behavioral pattern , habits , and so what happens is overwhelm . I had my eight-year-old tell me she's overwhelmed , right ? So overwhelm and this culture of doing , keep doing more .

You know you got to hustle , you got to do more , you got to work hard , because the only way you could ever do anything is by working hard . So we are , you know , we are raised in this culture of just doing more and not really taking the time to look at what is it that we're doing ? Why is it important to us ? What do we want to achieve in life ?

Not everyone's the same right . So maybe child A is interested in the math and science field , but then child B is interested in the arts , and there's just I think you know a lot of like thoughts that we have maybe as parents . Oh , this is the only way to do stuff you have to work really hard .

That's the only way you can get a you know , a good grade and go to college . And so I think that ultimately it comes to that . People who are in high performing jobs , they are used to working hard , they're used to hustling and doing all of the things and to a certain degree , their work ethic essentially kept the overwhelm at bay .

So as you start getting into those higher thoughts , you know I mean fields where you're really functioning at a higher level . There's a lot on your plate and you have to have clarity on what is important and be able to manage our feelings around those tasks .

So it could be that you know you apply for a job , for a promotion , say and and in your mind what you're thinking is well , but if I don't get the promotion , then what is that going to mean about me ? What is my self-worth , what is my , you know ? Am I going to be enough ? And so our brain automatically tries to say , oh , you don't really want that .

You know you kind of keep us in overwhelm or even self-sabotage . So we don't like . Procrastination is a form of self-sabotage that we do because we find it hard to manage our feelings around a task that we know would be good for us or that we want to do , but we are just struggling with managing our emotions .

And you can be in a high performance job and do it from a place of really not overwhelmed and do it from a place of peace , serenity , love for yourself , prioritize yourself , and those are also options .

Prioritize yourself , and those are also options , and that's where the creativity of the mind lies where you want to pursue your high performance or you want to stay at home , and either case the brain will have a tendency of creating overwhelm and in either case you have the choice of letting that happen or not .

And that's where the whole mind management and really polishing that filter , that talent , comes in . So it's really fascinating where you took it back to saying that we continue to change our circumstances , we switch jobs , we switch husbands , we switch hope to switch children , but that's not possible .

Well , what I'm really hearing is that it really can't be better , because you're taking the same mind from each circumstance to the next and the mind will find more problems in the next circumstance . So that's a very beautiful insight and thank you for sharing that .

So , as a life coach , when you deal with your clients or when you tell people that's what you do , what is it that ? What is the biggest misunderstanding that you have to deal with about your both of your careers ?

And , like you say , you're wearing one hat but you're doing it individually as a surgeon , as a mom and a life yeah , so I can say you know there's misunderstandings in all of those fields .

So , looking at habit building , you know how do we build that daily intentional presence , how do we connect to each of the habits we wear in all of the things right , and people think most people think that it's about the actions . So they think you know we got to do more . How are you more productive ?

You're a productivity coach , so how can I do more is usually the question that I am asked to help them with . And I have to help them understand that it's actually not about doing more , it's about doing less , but really being intentional about what you do so it has the most value for you , most value for you .

And so we spent a lot of time really looking at building clarity and building building what our thoughts are going to be . So building that intentional model of you know what is it that you want to create and how do we create that ? Because it first starts in our mind , as we just talked .

You know we can , we can change our circumstances , we can do all of the actions . But if our thoughts aren't connected and we aren't managing the negative emotions that might sometimes come up and we aren't looking to see if our actions are aligned and connected to our life vision and core values , then we're not very happy with the results that we see .

So I think really kind of bringing it back to that , and they do like knowing that they can do less .

So that's always a positive thing , and it's true , I mean even as a CEO , even as a , you know , even as a surgeon , as a mom , um , I used to believe , like as a mom , my value as a mom is how much I could do for my children , like how many activities I could take them to , the play dates , all the fun things .

And then I realized , you know what they just want me to be , you know , like be present with them .

So , uh , the pandemic helped a lot , but we had already started the process of just cutting down on things and spending more time just being present with each other , rather than worrying about oh you know how many more things can we kind of get done in that day or the weekend or whatnot .

And , like you say , it is a relief to find out that it's not more that you have to do . You probably are already doing a lot . It's , um , it's about the quality of what you're doing . So , model mashallah , you seem like a picture of perfection but , like as with anybody else , you're a human being .

I'd like , I'd be interested to know what challenges you're facing right now and , um , what mind do you bring to that challenge to be able to overcome it ?

So I used to think , I mean , I feel like , in our training and you know a lot of what we do , especially in surgery there's just , you know , there is people who are drawn to it , tend to be perfectionistic , and then you are , you know , you're constantly like critiquing yourself , you're being critiqued , um , you know , um , every you know change in the procedure

that you do could have a , you know , a significant impact . So I I feel like , you know , for most of my adult life I have , I've had a very active judge , and what I mean by that is there are ways that our brain works to to keep us safe , and then , when these voices get out of hand , they actually self-sabotage us .

And this is based on some of the work by Shazad Shamim .

He does work on positive intelligence coaching and I'm doing a coaching certification through his program , and it was really amazing to learn that the voice that I hear in my head constantly telling myself that I'm doing it wrong , I'm , you know , like somehow screwing up and I'm a failure and I'm not doing all the things right and I'm not good enough .

All of that it's not true . We all have a judge in our brain . It's just part of our survival mechanism , evolved from when we were little , and some people's judges are more prominent and some are less , but I think for me it was . It was prominent and then it became the predominant voice .

So I really had to work hard and I still have to bring awareness when I hear these voices in my head Not that I , you know I'm hearing delusions and voices , but you know when I'm hearing of , when I'm hearing myself say you know , why are you doing this wrong ? What is wrong with you ?

And all of those types of things I remind myself , you and all of those types of things I remind myself how would I talk to myself if it was my child ? and um , there are different ways to shift this , but for me that was the biggest um , you know , that was the biggest way , because I know I would never talk to my child like that , right .

So I so I started kind of reminding myself , you know , I am enough and you know I made dinner and it was , you know , like maybe a little burnt and like it's okay , it's going to be fine . We brush off the burnt corners and we still eat it anyway .

Right , if you clean the house and there's still , you know like , we start to look at the things that used to kind of drive us , you know , look at the things that used to kind of drive us , you know , like make us feel uncomfortable , feelings of discomfort , frustration , anger , and you see , if you know , is it okay to be angry ?

Is it okay to be uncomfortable ? How do you embrace that ? How do you embrace the fact that you are human , I mean , you know . So these are the questions , I think , with curiosity and , like you , you know , we were talking earlier about loving ourselves , you know , giving ourselves compassion .

What would it look like if we loved ourselves , if we accepted ourselves exactly as we are and we didn't have to be anything more .

We didn't have to , you know , be the first mom in the pickup line , or you know , like , get that promotion , or bake cookies , or you know , or any of those things that we think will be the reason we feel happy and ultimately , you know , I think embracing imperfections is an important step in being able to love ourselves .

that you have literally nurtured , but not knowing that that's what you were doing . And it's interesting that you mentioned pq , because I'm enrolled in his program and I remember asking you about it .

And it's funny because when I approached you with that and you're like , oh , I already am and that's , oh , my god , that's so great , you know , because his philosophy , um , aligns with mine and I was developing this way before I came across his work .

But I'm so glad that neuroscience backs this up because in Islam it says the same thing how we were created with this self-critical voice , which is the nafs , which the shaitan feeds on .

And if you don't stop to question that , or if you don't stop to say that , okay , I don't have to believe it , it's going to continue to run like a script and it's going to continue to run your life .

And then you stop to listen to the voice of your soul , your higher being , and that is when you accept your imperfections , because that's how a response all that created you . That is when you stop listening to that inner critic . So when I came across at work , it spoke volumes to me and I'm excited that I'm actually starting that next month .

So it's very much in line , like all of these scientific findings are very much in line with our religion . Nothing in science really disproves the presence of god . It's just our limited mind that we might not be able to collect , connect the dots quite yet . So it's very , it's very interesting all of that .

What I wanted to ask you next is about , let's say , mashallah . You've gathered so much experience in these fields of social sciences and surgery and medicine . If you were to write a book , what would it be about and what ?

You know , little tidbits of knowledge , the wisdom , the love , the connection , the curiosity . Through our life journey we come across different things and they all seem random .

Right , when I look back on my life , I look at how many random choices it seems to be random have taken me and brought me where I am right now , and I know that there's still more to come .

So I think what I would love to do is to connect some of these seemingly random dots of knowledge and wisdom and connected , connected back to my belief and my faith and you know how , how the challenges that come up , the opportunities that come up , the thoughts that come up , all of those things how do we really manage it with ease ?

I remember one time you know actually why one time Today morning I was doing something . I'm like this is so hard , and so many times in our daily life , right , you say this is hard .

This is not fair , this is difficult , and one of the new thoughts that I'm trying to adopt is , when I look at something I think this is hard is to instead ask myself with love , with compassion , with curiosity what would this be like if it was ? easy and so um .

So to bring back to the question , but I want to um , write a book on what life would be like , what productivity , what are , are , you know , like designing and creating a life of peace would be like if we allowed our feelings , if we embrace our imperfections , if we were authentic and , you know , true to who we are .

I'm a huge fan of Brene Brown , so I think my book would be like a combination of Brene Brown and Brooke Castillo and , you know , shirzad Jameen and all of these people , but in a way that really gives , that transmits my message , which is what if life wasn't hard ? What if life was easy ? What would that look like ? What would love do in this circumstance ?

What would ease be looking like in your daily actions ? And , and of course , you know it wouldn't be me if I didn't include some habit building tools and some some productivity tools in there .

But but I think it's really about connecting to our mind and I'm really building that relationship because for the long I mean honestly , for 40 years I felt like I never spent any time connecting to me as a human and when I realized that you know all of the things that I was critiquing myself and you know all of the the judge thing right , but Allah loves

me as I am . Yeah , alhamdulillah . So how can I , how can I see myself without all of the filters ? How can I love myself , how can I create a life of ease and in a way that is connected to not just me but to my family , to my environment , in a way that we're not like ?

You know comparing and despairing , and you know getting frustrated and getting annoyed , and you know all of the things that come up when we're like why is this person doing that and why is it so hard ? And you know I can't get up in the morning , and all of the things that we say what if it wasn't so ? So I think that's what I would want to , wow .

Why am I the one not with the corner office and the windows and the staff ? And when these self-salataging types of thoughts come , the answer isn't to go into positivity , because that becomes toxic positivity and that's not what we're saying at all , and it's fascinating to really see that in action with you as it unfolded right here and answered .

My question is most of those answers are questions . What would love do in this case ? How can I tie this to my family , my personal growth , my faith ? How can I live a life of ease ? You're not telling yourself this is what I have to do , because otherwise I'd be negative .

You're really diving deep into curiosity , which is what I go by , because when you're in a sort of a negative , self-sabotaging type of a place , the way to come out of it is not positivity . Yeah , sometimes repetitive positive thoughts work and positive affirmations work .

Sometimes repetitive positive thoughts work and positive affirmations work , but the really way to open doors for yourself is to be curious , because then your brain will present to you the answers that are correct for you . If you're trying to adopt positive affirmations , those are somebody else's thoughts created results for somebody else .

Sometimes it works for you , but most of the time when I'm trying to coach clients , what ends up happening is that they become rather walled off , that oh , it's just about me thinking this instead of that , and that's not at all what we're teaching .

We're saying just be open , just be curious , and then you'll find that your fitra , your higher wisdom , will automatically take over , and so that I think it's beautiful and thank you for offering that over and so that I think it's beautiful and thank you for offering that .

And so , and you know all of these , like I've lived it , like I did that for some time and and it , you know , it , works to a small degree , so it gives you that illusion , oh yeah , it's working , like it's all good . And then what I realized is that I have so many feelings that I had swept under the rug .

You know that that every time something would be stressful , like these thoughts would come up because I never actually dealt with it . So , really , a lot of my growth and my , you know , challenge has been to allow my feelings to , to sit with them and then to ask myself questions , because questions again asked not like what's the matter with you ?

What's what's the problem ?

But you know , questions of questions coming from a place where you know , no matter what , that you already are loved and you belong , you're worthy and you're enough as you are and when you start from a place like that and you ask yourself questions with love , when you start from a place like that and you ask yourself questions with love , with compassion , with

curiosity , then I do believe that you know , our brain offers us the answers . We don't have to go searching , you know , looking for anyone else to give us the answers . By connecting in that space of deep love , you're able to say you know what's the matter of deep love . You're able to say you know what's the matter .

And a lot of times , when I even talk to myself , like I really I use a lot of endearments like you know , cause you know , like what's the matter ? Love , like you know what's going on , do you , you know , do you need a hug ?

And because sometimes you're just , you know , our mind feels again indulging in that thought maybe of confusion or anxiety , you just need to give yourself that love and then just ask what is it that you actually need and see what comes up mashallah , yeah .

And I tend to do the same and I write a lot as well , and I do a lot of appreciation for myself , because um language of appreciation very important to me , and I say I do a lot , I do hard things and I make hard things easy for myself and I do it beautifully and I can do it and that's my talent and that's something um Allah has placed me on earth

to do , and I'll do it over and over again . So when people say , oh , you do so much , this is so hard , how do you do this ?

I , instead of internalizing that , I have to really sit there and tell myself okay , this is how I appreciate myself , because if I didn't do what everyone else thinks is hard , then I haven't really fulfilled my role , that I haven't really utilized my talents , my resources , my support , even because my family understands this is what I do .

My husband supports me , my in-laws , my immediate family and all of that .

So , using all of those resources that you have to your benefit and really speaking the language of your love to yourself , to be able to come from that face of positivity and then be curious about all of these demons in the closet that you have locked up , or these feelings that you shoved under the rug and you've hidden them for a long time so it makes it

easier to expose them , it makes it less scary somehow , because a lot of people get stunned in the in this phase of personal growth . I don't want to look there . Oh , my god , there's so much trauma , there's so much tragedy , there's so much bad memories . I don't want to go down that road . And it's completely safe and that's actually one .

What I say is Shaitan's best trick is that he hides all of these things and he makes it look like it's real and it's a fact of life . When all of these are really just thoughts and narratives on repeat , what do you do to self-educate ?

I , I should say I find things that I'm really passionate , or you should say that things find you Well , things find me , and I am learning , constraint , but it is a work in progress . But you know , so I , there are so many things that I'm passionate about , and I allow myself to do a couple of things each year .

So , and it varies like , one year it was actually a lot of cooking and baking , and one year it was finances . You know how to manage my finances ? How do I understand things ? So I think , every year I kind of explore what it would be , and so I love to

learn . I am a very audio visual learner , so it's a lot of YouTube , it might be courses or programs , um , and then I love to read as well , so books , uh , so , ultimately it is , it's really , like you know , I've got this like plate of things that I really want to learn .

I want to learn everything , but , um , I try to kind of go one bite at a time . Um , one year I had actually I almost signed up for like a six-month culinary program and then I'm like , no , no , I cannot do that , I don't have time for it , or I that wasn't you know where I wanted to put my time for those six months .

So I have a lot of interest , for sure . Yeah .

Like people who say we do mind management , we practice mind management , it's an ongoing process . One thing I want to also kind of touch back on is that when you say you allow yourself , you're really giving yourself a choice , you're allowing yourself to learn about finances .

What ends up happening is this freedom of choice is where a lot of opportunity lies , and I don't think we as humans give ourselves that choice . We have a lot of choices .

The brain says , no , this is what you have to do , this is , this is something you're obligated to do , and that's when we kind of box ourselves in and not really explore all of our talents . One thing I want to explore with you what do you think allowing a feeling really means ?

Oh , you know , um , how do I change my circumstance , how do I change my thought ? How do I change my actions ? You think , by changing any of those things along the line , that somehow your feeling is going to change , and , um , I believe that too .

I thought , oh , you know , I just have to do , I just have to change my thought up and when , when I really embraced that ? No , it's just I'm feeling angry right now , and when I allow that , or I'm feeling sad . A couple of days ago , I felt really sad .

There were just a couple of things going on and I just spent the day allowing that feeling to go through my body . I felt where it was . I , you know you , pay attention to how that feeling vibrates , you know , or moves through your body . Where would you feel ?

A knot in your stomach or a tightness in your chest that is not related to chest pain , you know , I , you know , that day , like , I went for hot yoga and you know like , as I was doing , moving through my yoga poses , I was just feeling like , well , is that feeling moving through me ? Now , you know , do I feel it anywhere else ?

And just not that I'm sitting there and like crying all day , but I am feeling what ? Or I am I don't know if feeling is descriptive enough but I am really allowing my body to experience that emotion in a way that before I would just be trying to ignore it or resist it

. You know resisting might look like you know you're trying to do Netflix instead of . You know like , so you can stop thinking about it , or you might buffer where you like you know you're trying to do Netflix instead of .

You know like so you can stop thinking about it , or you might buffer where you do you know you might do some emotional eating , or you might try to distract your thoughts and your feelings with another activity . So allowing your allowing a feeling is really feeling where it is in your body , not trying to move it or push it away .

And ultimately , actually one of my coaches , a long time ago , before I even knew about the thought model , he shared this with me and I feel like this sort of exemplifies what it is . You know how , when you go to the beach and the waves , they come and they go , so our thoughts and feelings can sometimes feel like that .

We might not always have control over them . Right , the waves , they're coming and they're going , but sometimes we try to hold on to it because we think that somehow we can control it or we can change it or manipulate it . But what if we knew , as the beach knows , okay , that's fine .

Sometimes the waves they might take a few of my sands or they might create an impact in my life , but I am still the beach and I am still enough I'm , you know , powerful in my own being and to accept and acknowledge that power . So when I have thoughts or feelings that kind of really take my breath away .

Or I might have feelings that I'm processing through . I know at the end of it it's going to be just fine and it's believing in my own soul to allow myself to go through that experience .

Um , I kind of want to close this by asking you what is your one favorite thought that you can let us borrow ?

So , and I have many thoughts , but I think that the thought that really guides me and , you know , helps me make decisions , when there are tough decisions to be made , is what is the most loving thing that I can do right now , whether it is for myself , whether it is for my children or my clients or my patients or you know , whoever , whomever Just connecting

to what is , you know , if there are decisions to be made , I feel like you know connecting back to love and compassion is always a good guide .

You know we teach that . But what if , instead , we said you know Allah loves you , and connecting to the love and mercy , and then saying you know , what would that prayer look like ? When you go cook dinner , because you love your family and you're , you know , you're staying vicar and you're connected what would that meal look like ?

So every action that we do has a blessing in it . So every action that we

do has a blessing in it . And instead of trying to do something because we're afraid that something's terrible is going to happen , what if we said what if something beautiful is going to happen ? You know what if ? Um , what would it be like if I could really just in the process of doing my laundry ? I could feel that .

You know , baraka , and so I think that's always connecting back to love and mercy instead of running from fear and anxiety is definitely the place where we can be our best self .