The Waging Peace Podcast

Storytelling as a Lifeline: Using Narrative for Mental Health in Conflict Zones

• Diana K. Oestreich • Season 2 • Episode 19

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Stories we tell ourselves shape our relationships and psychological well-being. Mohsin Modi-Ud-Din shows how harmful narratives can erode mental health while transformative storytelling rebuilds connections across even the deepest divides. 

Listen to hear more about:

• Mohsin's experiences in Gaza with humanitarian medical missions 
• How storytelling interventions help trauma survivors reclaim their humanity
• Neuroplasticity and our brain's capacity for growth and transformation
• Cultivating curiosity to overcome fear in our relationships

"Every single human being is a living, breathing story of change. The second that we diminish or forget that, we risk having a very toxic culture, toxic family, toxic world and toxic beliefs because we're going against the essence of who we are."

About Mohsin:

Mohsin is an artist, activist, and Founder of #MeWe International Inc. (#MeWeIntl), a global non-profit that builds communications and storytelling interventions for psychological wellbeing, leadership development, and community engagement.

His work has received honors from SOLVE MIT and Open Ideo. Mohsin’s innovative work has reached thousands of people across more than 12 countries, beginning with his Fulbright Scholarship in 2010.

He has been a featured speaker at the World Economic Forum, United Nations, MIT, TEDx, and his work on #MeWeSyria has been published on UNHCR Innovation, VICE, and Al Jazeera.

How to find Mohsin:

  • Instagram: @ allplacesfromhere 
  • Website:   https://www.meweintl.org/  
  • Facebook:   Mohsin Mohi Ud Din & MeWeIntl

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Diana Oestreich:

Today on the podcast. I am so pumped to introduce you to Mohsin Modi, dean founder and CEO of MeWe International. He's an artist and he's an activist, a global nonprofit that builds communication and storytelling interventions for psychological well-being, leadership, development and community engagement. He has been in Gaza, he's been in Syrian refugee camps and he's using communication as a space for transforming the trauma of those who are living under violence. It's super incredible and being a mental health worker and storyteller who are serving kids right now is exactly what we need. He is a hero.

Diana Oestreich:

Molson's innovative work has reached thousands of people across more than 12 countries, beginning with his Fulbright scholarship in 2010. He has been a featured speaker at the World Economic Forum, united Nations, mit, tedx and his work on MeWe're going to hear about the narrative that America is telling itself right now and the story that we could be telling ourselves to change. You're also going to hear about some neuroscience and you're going to hear about the power of storytelling for mental health and actually authoring your own life. So I'm just telling you he is freaky, smart, super kind and he's a world changer. So welcome Mohsen. Mohsen and I have already gotten into it and I didn't want anybody to miss this you said that this time last year you were in Gaza. Yeah, yeah, that's correct.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Yeah, it was during the beginning of Ramadan last year you were in Gaza. Yeah, yeah, that's correct. Yeah, it was during the beginning of Ramadan. Last year was when I was in with a medical aid mission, humanitarian mission. Yeah, with MedGlobal.

Diana Oestreich:

We were both talking about wanting to be there again. My military colleagues who have been protesting for a free Gaza got pulled out, and now we're wondering who gets in and who doesn't. So will you tell me how it works for people to get in?

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Well, right now, from colleagues that have been able to go back and be in service for humanitarian medical aid missions. It's chaotic and it's at the will of whatever border guard or soldier is there. So you can have all the permissions from all the different sides once you get there. But then, like literally when you're physically there, they could just, for no reason, even though you have previous permissions, they could just turn you away. Reason even though you have previous permissions, they could just turn you away.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

That's happened to a lot of humanitarian workers and aid workers, foreign aid workers who are coming in with WHO convoys and have all the permissions, they're just randomly not allowed in. An increasing number of humanitarian aid workers right now in the last several months have not been allowed in and in the last few weeks we're towards the end of March right now no food, fuel, water, anything's getting in, so it's only gotten worse. So it's less likely if you're an aid worker that you will be given permission. In fact, the United Nations offices where a lot of the foreign UN staff in Gaza that house, or that guest house as they call it was bombed by the military and I think a foreign aid worker was killed, and so now the UN is pulling a third of its humanitarian international staff out, so in fact, there's less aid workers getting in and there's more international humanitarian aid workers being forced out. So in fact there's a more there's less aid workers getting in and there's more international humanitarian aid workers being forced out. So it's not a good situation right now.

Diana Oestreich:

Which has been pretty historic, because you and I have both been in Syrian refugee camps, so this is not the first. This is not the first mass murder, this is not the first war, but pulling out and not allowing aid workers in, that has been a historic crime which has been being enabled by the US. So, even as Americans, right now you are trying to go in as a humanitarian and I had a colleague who was trying to go in as a humanitarian and she went through Tel Aviv and they opened her phone, looked at her social media and then denied her entry, even though she had all the permissions. She's a U S citizen, we have all these things, but they control and are refusing to allow Americans, who just straight Americans they can turn you away.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Yeah, and I'm an American, born here, I have a U? S passport, I'm a citizen of America and though, you know, at the time this time last year, when I was in Rafa, the Rafa crossing was still open on the Egypt side. But even to get through that you have to have permission and they go, they vet you. There's a lot of legitimately, so there's a lot of security that goes into can't just walk over the border, but the rafa crossing and that whole area has been completely decimated and taken over by the military. So all of these like levers for getting aid in are just being just literally destroyed. And now it's at the point where aid workers are being targeted. Medical staff, doctors, nurses, mental health specialists are being targeted increasingly so, especially in the last few weeks and months.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

So it's, it's tragic and and yeah, you know, I don't know it's it's tragic, and and yeah, you know, I don't know it's heartbreaking we're not giving up. You know we're not giving up and and it's I can't focus on that. You know I can't focus on that. After you know it's like what little can you do? Even if it's a pebble, you need to do it. You know what I mean.

Diana Oestreich:

Yeah, and when we continue to see all of this, I think it continues to challenge us to not give up and to say like this is who I'm going to be, no matter what. I'm going to be the person who refuses to look away and who cares, because if we don't't give up so much more that we can't ever get back. You know, like who we are in this moment is a is a reality, and our actions are receipts, and I truly believe that our kids are going to ask us and we're going to get to say what we did yeah, it's a tireless effort and journey and again we're speaking.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

We're speaking here on this podcast, which thank you for having me, by the way, you know from a completely privileged position. It's about human beings, whether you are Israeli or Palestinian. It's about human beings, and right now there are human beings who are being starved and there are human beings who are being bombed upon while they are receiving treatment in hospitals. There's 17 000 plus children who have been killed. There's palestinian mothers two palestinian mothers are being killed every hour. According to unicef, young women and united nations, there are more amputees in the last year in Palestine than anywhere else in the world because of the violence. So we're talking about human beings here. Human beings, human beings, human beings and their humanity is our humanity, as well as an Israeli's humanity is my humanity and a Muslim's humanity is my humanity. A Jewish person's humanity is my humanity. It's all interconnected. You know what I mean the African-American communities where I'm coming from, in the South, here in the United States and Georgia their rights and humanity is my humanity. You know, every African-American person I see here is a walking miracle, in the same way that every Jewish person that I'm friends with and have the honor of meeting is a walking miracle, in the same way that the Palestinian mothers who were starving but were still able to take care of their children in Gaza when I was there a year ago is a walking miracle. It's all interconnected.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

I think the heartbreaking thing is that, because of all the noise and politicization, we're forgetting, we're othering in such an extreme way and this othering is eroding connectedness. And all of this talk about security is coming at the expense of our shared collective humanity, and it's not up to a government and it's not up to a political party. It's up to us. Literally like how am I raising my children? How am I showing up for my jewish brothers and sisters who are dealing with fear and anti-semitism and judgment? How am I showing up for them protecting? How am I showing up for my muslim brothers and sisters who are getting deported for standing up for humanity? How am I showing up for whoever it is, if?

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

If we don't show up for each other, then there's nothing. It's not about a government or politics anymore. It's about how we bear witness to ourselves and to one another, which is why I do the work that I do. It's highly focused on communication. If we don't have communication, as Thich Nhat Hanh said, if we don't have communication, we don't have community. And right now we're fighting for community, not a community of said group and said no.

Diana Oestreich:

Right.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

This community, human community.

Diana Oestreich:

And one of the things that you have said on your TED Talk was the story that we tell ourselves. How do you say it? You had a really cool little sweet.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

I was like I can't play it. It's the stories. The stories you tell yourself about yourself shapes how you treat yourself and how you navigate the story of yourself about yourself. It literally authors and shapes your relationships and how you engage with the people on this planet around you. And so if you are accepting a harmful, negative, toxic story about yourself and you're giving that to yourself every day, that is going to erode your physical health, according to the science and research, and it's going to erode your mental health and it's going to colonize your ability to have any pro-social, healthy relationships in your life. So this story making and processing machine in our skull that we call the brain is writing these narratives and messages without your permission all the time, and a lot of the time it's keeping you alive.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

It's about survival, but survival is not the only channel for being a human being, and survival is largely driven by fear and we need fear to keep alive. Physiologically speaking is largely driven by fear and we need fear to keep alive, physiologically speaking. But in terms of community, we need connectedness and connectedness comes from perspective and compassion and empathy and curiosity above fear. But the more that we have this security, focused mind, this survival, you know this brain that's hijacked and survival mode, we start to lose those other muscles and networks of the brain that actually keeps our human species alive and thriving and growing, and that's why you're seeing all these conflicts happening and all of this dehumanization and the collective dehumanization we're seeing in Palestine is, you know, you can't go anywhere in the world right now and not see it and have it, hear it and feel it. It's everywhere.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

And you know the biggest, the biggest thing, I I've been thinking a lot. You know, I keep having flashbacks to when I was in Gaza, because it was a year ago this time right that I was there and and you have children that I was working with. I was doing communication, arts-based mental health, psychosocial support activities for people in Rafah who have been displaced and who were human beings. I mean children are asking am I a human being? And there is no measure or policy on earth that could convince me that whatever we're doing in the name of security is justified. When children are questioning if they are human beings, whether they are Israeli or Palestinian or American or Yemeni or whatever it is. Something is deeply wrong here.

Diana Oestreich:

And something that you say about how the stories that we tell about ourself keep the score for us.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

And.

Diana Oestreich:

I'm a big believer that a lot of our stories are handed to us as children, and I had found myself in the Iraq war as a soldier in combat.

Diana Oestreich:

When all of a sudden I had a big experience of, oh, this is nothing, you know. You look at the other person at the end you see the whites in their eyes and you're like wait a second, I'm scared. You're scared, this makes no sense and our governments do not care about us. But we're in this together because we are team humanity. And there you see yourself in the other person that says I'm not going to be okay if they aren't okay. So I found myself at the point where I could never take a life. I could give my life, but in this connectedness that is the truest true. I could never be anything but for team humanity. And I was connected to something bigger than the story. I was told by my small town in Minnesota, by the politics I was handed, by the religion, I was handed by the nationalism. But I keep thinking what story got me here? Because I looked around and was like what you know to have? Everything that you're told is good and it's for security and it's right. And if you're the good guys, then it doesn't matter what you do. You don't have to be accountable for your actions or the impact, because everybody else, they're just in the bad guy bucket, which means they're disposable and which means they're not human, because if they were human I would have to be accountable for my actions.

Diana Oestreich:

I have been wanting to ask you the stories I was told put me in a place waging war against people that I didn't know. And all of that made sense to me until I actually was living in the reality of my convictions, that I realized I had been handed but never tested, and I was being like an eyewitness to my beliefs and actions and it was a thousand percent wrong. I wasn't who I was supposed to be. I found out I was a peacemaker in middle of a war, wearing a soldier's uniform, which is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

Diana Oestreich:

That's freedom. That's life Like I'll never live without that again, no matter what it costs me. Freedom, that's life. I'll never live without that again, no matter what it costs me. But I wanted to ask you if I was told stories that brought me into a place to wage war, which was a thousand percent not actually who I was. What is the story that America that is allowing them to treat other people, immigrants, anybody who is of color, palestinians? What is the story that they're telling themselves? That is translating to how they're treating people who are living in Gaza right now.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

It's a million-dollar question. There's different levels of how to approach that. I can only offer more questions and paths for exploration instead of a clear answer. But I have some thoughts on it and I don't know if they're 100% correct. But being in 20 countries and being at the front lines of war and injustice, and in these 15 years that I've been doing this community work, I have some thoughts on that. I think number one we have to.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

America is at a point where it's been in before, where there's groups that want deeply want the, the story of America to be fixed. And then there's a group that realized that the story of America is an ever-changing, constantly evolving, flowing river and it's not this just static lake where nothing's happening. And a big reason for that divide is fear. And if fear is the glacier that's feeding that lake or that river, then you're going to constantly be looking over your shoulder and your lens for building relationships is going to be very transactional, meaning how am I benefiting and how am I going to survive, versus what is the interdependence here? What is the connectedness elements here? And so I think that's a big part of it. I think the second part of it is, as Americans, our inequality lives in our language, how we communicate things, including history and politics, is very, very, very small and it's very binary. And that's not how nature works, that's not how the universe works and that's not how human beings are meant to operate. So, for example, I'm living in Georgia, I'm living outside Atlanta. Okay, I'm in a mixed-race marriage. My wife is Caucasian. Sometimes I'm the first Muslim married to a Christian. You know that people meet and that those multitudes of existence that are real are so overwhelming that people just want the binary. They want no. Well, if you're Muslim, it means this, and if you're Christians, it means this. And if you're not white, then it must mean that. And if you are white, it must mean that it's not how things work. And we're doing it in politics, we're doing it in how we teach history.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

In history, like you just said, there's the good guys and then there's the bad guys, and it is not that simple. And in working with children who have been affected by violence and abuse and even our conflict and in some cases, associated with terrorism, you often find that the line between a victim and a perpetrator is very close. Oftentimes the perpetrators were themselves, at one point, victims, and but we don't see the world that way, so we just see judgment and punishment. If you screw up or if you did this, that means this if you stayed out of trouble and you didn't do anything, then that means this it's not like so. Inequality lives in the language of how we do things, and that language is the algorithm through which our brain works and processes things, and so that's going to shape how I see you and how I interact with you and also how I treat myself.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

You know, if I were to depoliticize it, let's just say for me, when I was growing up, I was conditioned to believe that being Muslim meant X, y and Z. Yet I'm married to someone who was not Muslim. I'm living in Georgia. I have a chocolate lab dog, which are not tech, I was taught. Never have it. If you have a dog, you're not Muslim, right?

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

I was in a rock and roll band in New York for 15 years with my brother. I was taught music is you can't do that and be. You know I was taught all these things that right, and so that's what I was taught. Music is you can't do that and be. You know I was taught all these things that right, and so that's what I was doing and I was limiting the possibilities of myself. I was letting someone else author the story of me internally. My internal communication was completely hijacked.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

But, like you, had an experience where you actually, because of your resilience and your awareness, you had a moment where curiosity could overcome fear. And once we allow curiosity to overcome fear, that's when healing and perspective taking can happen. Now, perspective taking is the next step, because if you don't have perspective taking, then what you have is conclusion making, because if you don't have perspective taking, then what you have is conclusion making, and America and our culture has become a conclusion making machine Instead of a space for perspective taking and interdependence, even when a conclusion is wrong and you have to say something. But if, right out the gate, we're saying something to prove someone wrong, even though we're saying the truth, truth without love is a lie, meaning that I could be telling you something that's the truth, but if I'm not delivering it in love and compassion to you, curiosity is not going to overtake fear.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Fear is going to be in charge of curiosity, and right now, that's the state that America is living in. Fear is overtaking curiosity and living in fear is overtaking curiosity and conclusion making is overtaking perspective taking. When 200 plus years ago there was a time, before america even existed, where there was a culture of curiosity above fear. We're going to explore, we're going to go out west, we need to create a new system. There was a time where there was perspective taking over conclusion making. You know, and I think that's the tension we see right now, it's the difference between what neuroscientists would call like a fixed, you know brain mindset and a growth brain mindset.

Diana Oestreich:

It's, it's that's the difference and I come from a culture of fundamentalism. I didn't really know that until much later. I was like, oh, it's just that we're right and everyone else is wrong. Like if it's a Christian church next door but it's like Lutheran Presbyterian, who knows? If it's just not us, then somehow they should be doing it our way.

Diana Oestreich:

And to come from that fundamentalism plus eight years in the military, what I ended up in processing my own story and writing it at the end of my book I see a lot of the tension was about allegiance.

Diana Oestreich:

Is that to belong to this group, you had to say that we were the only right ones. It's that whole thing like in middle school where it's like I want to sit with so-and-so, like if you sit at that table then you can't sit with us and you're like well, shoot. There's this tension of allegiance and then I also think there is a tension of goodness where I don't know that people are so much as wanting to prove other people wrong. I think there is a huge compulsion to hold their rightness that says we hold all the rightness. Instead of we are both part of goodness and we both have rightness in this. There is this huge defense that says no, no, we are the right, we have the right things. And there's this refusal to accept that another religion might have that too. Another country has that too, coming from those high control groups I found when people were were in it because we were still human beings, like we knew there was something wrong here.

Diana Oestreich:

But why people didn't, didn't choose to be truthful to their humanity, was because they feared getting kicked out by their group because, if they possibly said, somebody else mattered too, that was enough things get way more complex so for me, whenever I have people fear, like I totally get it. But the flavor that I saw was never fear, it was always goodness, the control that says we have it all on our street. And then allegiance, and nobody wants to betray the allegiance of their group. So I didn't see it so much as fear as much as controlling the power and controlling the narrative of who's right they want to defend.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Rightness, sure that tenacity to to defend your rightness. It, it could be argued, is driven by fear, because if you're not right, then what does that mean?

Diana Oestreich:

Well see, I think you'd have to just share. I think people have this thing that we teach our toddlers to share, and it's a virtue, but past a certain age we celebrate that people won't share. They have to. They actually think it's a value to have more than everybody else. We look up to it, but it's dysfunctional in our collective.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Yeah, in certain cultures for sure. Yeah, I think so Because I think other cultures it's. The collective is everything, like in Gaza and in Palestine, and what I know from my Jewish brothers and sisters, who also have a beautiful culture and religion, and what I know from my Jewish brothers and sisters, who also have a beautiful culture and religion. Like the collective sharing any, whatever little you have, you share it. There is a responsibility for the collective. Families live all together in one plot of land. The elders are not shipped out to some retirement home to be alone Like. There's so many aspects to it across cultures. I think it varies, you know, but you know, I think the question you have is a really important one. I think there's the. We forget what I see in my work around the world when it comes to identity and things, the self, which is what we're talking about right now. There is this very dangerous myth that your brain is fixed, your circumstance is fixed and there is one story and it's handed to you and that's what you get. And that is just not true Physiologically, biologically, psychologically and spiritually. Physiologically, if we're talking about neuroscience, the brain is not fixed. It's constantly changing. It's called neuroplasticity. The brain is flexible, right, it adapts for the better and for worse. It's a beautiful thing though. It's an opportunity for resilience and growth. So the brain is not fixed, especially in the first 26 years of life. Okay, spiritually, you look at any religion, the stories in any major faith, even back to indigenous, beautiful indigenous cultures the stories are about growth and transformation, not being static and fixed right. So even in the spiritual teachings, this concept of one path, one story, one mode is actually not actually in the stories of religion and different spiritualities and faiths. It's actually about making mistakes and getting back up and resilience and growing and being challenged, right. And then, psychologically, every single human being I believe and I say this in my work around the world every single human being is a living, breathing story of change. That is what we are. And the second, that we diminish that or forget that, then we risk having a very toxic culture and a toxic family and a toxic world and toxic beliefs, because we're going against the essence of who we are. We are each living, breathing stories of change, right? So I can be and this gets back to your original question about where are we at in America. It's because we're seeing things as not that and I can.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

I literally was praying this morning and I was thinking about how I was thinking about my Jewish friends who I see on all different sides of politics, about my Jewish friends who I see on all different sides of politics and, yes, they are my friends and I was literally praying for them and I was acknowledging that every Jewish friend that I have, that I'm honored to know, is a walking miracle, given what they have been through. Right, and that's why I mentioned to you and today, living in the South, and every time I see a friend from the black community, african-american community down here, I'm like you are a walking miracle, and the same in Gaza every month. It's like I can think those things as a Muslim who is pro-Palestinian and still defend and protect and love my Jewish brothers and sisters and my Christian brothers and sisters and my Yemeni brothers and sisters and my American brothers and sisters.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

These multitudes can exist, but we're burying that. We're not. We're pretending like they can't and they can. That, to me, is what america is. I have a more dynamic relationship with my islamic muslim identity because I'm in america, because in america I can meet sudanese, yemeni, palestinian, lebanese, baha'i, like whatever. It is different here in this beautiful country, the multitudes is what makes us america, but now we're erasing that, and it's not. You're republican or democrat. You were either for biden or you're for. No, it's not. That's not reality, man. Those are myths.

Diana Oestreich:

They're not real right and I think there's this choice, which I will totally be honest. This is purely my blinders, because it comes from my transformation. My transformation was when I could see and be accountable and responsible for the humanity of another person, full stop. It didn't matter where they lived, who they were, across, what border, what religion. When I saw and accepted my belonging to the human family and my responsibility for them, that was a choice that I made.

Diana Oestreich:

I keep looking for people to make that choice that says every single person is a miracle, every single person is ours to be responsible for. So we cannot deny them anything. It is our work to do, and I, as a Christian, the tradition, the Christians were different back in the day because, instead of just taking care of their vulnerable or their poor or their homeless, they took care of everybody's. That's it for me. That is the transformation, that is the joy, that's what religion can do. It takes us from these individuals to ones who are connected to each other with an undeniable choice. That's my integrity and I see that across every single line, and that is what I'm hoping that Americans will start to choose. They'll have to decide what is true for you, and if it's true for you. It has to be true for a Muslim, for an Israeli, for a Christian, for a Muslim, for an Israeli, for a Christian, for a Palestinian. If we can't take our principles and apply it to every single person, then we're not practicing a principle, we're practicing prejudice.

Mohsin Mohi Ud Din:

Yeah.

Diana Oestreich:

That's what I keep on my hopeful days. I want people to make the choice You're already making a choice, but you can make a better one that you're going to be so proud of your neighborhood and so proud of your country and your kids if we make the choice that every life matters.

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Diana K Oestreich

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