Inspiring Women Series are to showcase some of the successful modest women out there, who succeed not inspite of their hijab but because of it.
Mai Elwy, 36 Years, Counseling Psychologist, Parenting Educator, and Founder or Raising Happy For Parenting and Counseling Services.
Tell us what inspired you to shift your career and start working the field of psychology?
After I graduated, I tried and quitted many jobs, I didn’t like any of them, and the most two jobs that felt interesting for me were training and education, so I knew that would be it for me. To understand people and help them change, bit by bit, I knew that all of this is psychology related. So I decided to do a master’s degree and back then I was a new mom, The road was long but I was decided on it anyway. I traveled to America to take my parenting certificate and the journey started from then on.
In your opinion, what are the attributes that would help someone succeed specially in a young age like you?
I think it’s having the willingness to take risks while not knowing what might happen. To realize that while walking on that road you’ll tremble and fall, but still have the resilience to wake up again and resume where you stopped. To have the will to work while not knowing whether this will succeed or not, bearing up with all the uncertainties.
To be committed regardless of the obstacles or the circumstances you’re facing. And the most important thing is to break free from the categories or definitions that the society has put for us. Whether it’s that success has a certain shape or form, or that you need to achieve so & so within a specific age. Or that because you’re a mom you need to sacrifice for something instead of another.
I think finding a formula for yourself that would help you achieve what you want in the way that suits you is what worked best for me.
What are the most important things we can do to keep our mental states healthy & stable?
It’s to always practice self-care, and this has many different shades. Firstly, is to take care of our bodies by eating healthy and sleeping properly. It’s to also take care of our emotional wellbeing, to have someone whom we can open up with knowing that they will listen, a safe space. Or to express in different activities like writing or drawing. Also working out is so beneficial for our mental and physical wellness.
There’s also the spiritual care, and it’s to pray, read Quran, meditate, make duaa. Things that allow us to break for a while from the materialistic life. And there’s the social care, and it’s to invest in the important relationships that we have in our lives by having some quality time, and getting rid of the toxic ones.
Surely we won’t be able to do all that at once, but at least we can pick and choose from the list and focus on the things that need the most attention.
You definitely face a lot of issues in your job regarding children, families, and relationships.. what are the biggest challenges that you face in these sessions?
It’s that many times the work can be so stressful, as we hear lots of stories that demand lots of energy and mental capacity, and surely we trained a lot on that, how to disconnect between work and our personal lives.
Yet on the other hand, it’s so beautiful when I see that there is someone whom I helped his life to be more bearable or that what was distressing the person has eased and now they can see solutions. Or even that I offered this person a safe space to discover and express himself. This part of the job always wins over the stressing & difficult side of it.
How do we raise our children in a way that would help them hold on tight to their faith & identity?
It’s so important for our principles & priorities to be clear enough before anything. To think before taking any action, that what’s important is not what will happen in this moment’s fight, but what I want them to learn on long term. What helps in forming the right principles for children are four things.
Firstly, is that we talk a lot about these principles in our home in different ways depending on their age. So maybe in the form of stories or situations that we personally went through and what was our actions in them.
Secondly, it’s that they see us actually implementing these principles in our lives, because they learn far more from what they see than what we say. So if we talk about something we ourselves are not doing, they’ll end up learning nothing. Thirdly, to start forming a habit. To let them translate these principles into actions that would let them know whether they’re living up with these rules or not. And lastly, to cheer up for them and give positive comments on the least things they do, even if they’re unaware of it themselves or they easily do it.
What are the 4 most important advices you’d give to every mom who has a teenager?
First thing, is that we must understand that this phase is as hard on them as it is on us, it has many challenges and contradicting emotions. The second thing and it’s extremely important, is that we offer them a safe space where they can talk about any and everything without us judging them or making them feel burdened of what our reactions might be.
Thirdly, is to try to understand their own world to able to get closer to them, as in knowing what games they play, the applications they use, just have an idea about these stuff. The last thing, is to put firm & clear limits, because in this age they will always try to test us, they will try to break all the rules that we’ve put for them, and these rules no matter how they bothered them but it gives them a sense of safety, and it’s absence will cause them stress & anxiety. On the other hand, they should have their personal space where they make their own decisions & we should respect that so they’d respect the rules we put for them.
What are the services that Raising Happy currently offers? And are there any coming plans?
Raising Happy is a social enterprise dedicated to raising awareness on the right parenting methods, we offer workshops for parenting and also for teachers, and we offer counseling sessions for parents, individuals, families and married couples.
We deal with NGOs that are child-related and we train the workers. We offer free awareness online content on our social media platforms for children’s psychological needs. What I wish to focus on in the coming period is to train professionals in the parenting field through a program that we’ve created to help spread the benefit for much more people.