The Waging Peace Podcast

When Words Heal: Conversations from Gaza to America

• Diana K. Oestreich • Season 2 • Episode 20

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Mohsin Modi-Ud-Din, founder and CEO of MeWe International, shares his innovative work using storytelling and communication to transform trauma in conflict zones including Gaza and Syrian refugee camps.

In this second part of our conversation you will hear more about how:

• MeWe International builds communication and storytelling interventions for psychological well-being and community engagement across 12+ countries
• Peace provides what war can't: justice and joy, which are essential for human flourishing
• Storytelling creates community, which keeps humans alive as a species
• Communication has been weaponized but should be reclaimed as a tool for transformation

About Mohsin Modi-Ud-Din:

Mohsin Modi-Ud-Din 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 , 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:

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 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 raising teenage boys. So when you talk about language and what we're saying and what we're not saying, and also we're a multiracial family, they're in high school it's shocking to hear. I'm like you really think that. Well, yeah, we all do. I want kids to see what's possible when we make a choice for all of us.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

It's hard to do that in today's culture, especially in this country, because, like a lot of the youth I'm working with, I mean, look, suicide is one of the highest killers of young people today. Anxiety and depression are some of the fastest growing diagnoses in the world today. Like when you're talking, I have four kids right. So when we talk about youth, children and youth, there is a huge epidemic happening, especially after the pandemic of. There is less and less time and space to talk back to your thoughts, and that's a skill, because not every thought we have is a fact. It's just a thought.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

But when we're living in a culture where thoughts are being manifesting out as everything is this and it's all put out there and it's a fact, it's no, that's not the case. You need time and space to talk back to your brain and to your body and to your thoughts, and that's where regulation and perspective taking come in, and it's a big component of the work I do around the world is using evidence-based tools and practices in communication and storytelling for psychosocial support. That really focuses on how can you talk back to your brain and your body when you're feeling anxiety or when you're feeling depressed or when you're feeling suicidal or when you're living in a toxic culture that's dehumanizing you.

Diana Oestreich:

Even if you buy into it, because I feel, like many of us, we've been told this is how it is, and so even you want to belong as a woman this is what you got to be or as, like, whatever gender you are it has to be this way. So, even when we buy into these stories that dehumanize humanity, I don't think they can live without it. Why I really do my work and my life is for peace. I think that peace defends people and I truly believe it gives us what war can't, which is justice and joy, and I don't know how our kids are going to exist without justice and joy. I don't think our spirit can. I don't think our world can, though it's cheaper and easier to deny it from some and take it all for ourselves. I think we need those things. Tell the truth.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

That's beautiful. I love how you frame it. Justice and joy I like those two things together.

Diana Oestreich:

I am part of a community that helps families who are unsheltered and go and make tacos on a Tuesday and hang out. I'm happy that my kids can go to bed with a full belly, but I will never have joy until every kid in my city has a full belly, so I'm going to do that till the day I die. I'm going to fight for that and I think that fight is what actually gives us some of the mental resiliency and purpose yeah, yeah. And Viktor Frankl.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Of course logotherapy, huge component. Yeah, I mean, you know a psychiatrist, a psychologist right that survived a concentration camp.

Diana Oestreich:

Oh, four. I think he survived four of them. But the thing that I keep thinking about him is that he made it through those camps and the purpose he had was his wife and his unborn child, and then the fact that he came back and had to find out that they were gone, that he had to come up with a new purpose and live through that grief and trauma and then somehow have a very productive next 40 years. That's the real proof that he could relate with all of that, and I saw an interview with him on how he's taking flying lessons.

Diana Oestreich:

I got to see that, oh you can barely understand him because he's got the cutest little accent, but he was saying that he's taking flying lessons and with your trajectory he said that if we overshoot, think of people as better than they actually are, then they become better actually are, then they become better. But if we see people as they currently are and what their actions are, he said, they'll oftentimes underperform.

Diana Oestreich:

He said, being an exaggerated optimist is actually the way that we help people become better yeah, Uplift, elevate that we help people become better yeah uplift, elevate, we do it with planes, we overshoot here and then we land here and I was like dang it, victor, again. Seeing people's possibility instead of their actions is how we fuel a better story.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Yeah, it's how we can have peace Right.

Diana Oestreich:

So I think that we have been just born into a country that wages war in multiple ways. Physically, we've been doing it for every year, except for 17 years. In our history. We've only been at peace for 17 years out of 250. And I think, born into these political wars and just these religious wars, and, you know, the war on drugs, the war on poverty, we don't know anything except for war. But I think waging peace is how we show up and fight for what we want. But we actually win because we're winning people. We're not eliminating people, we're winning them to the side that says we all deserve justice.

Diana Oestreich:

And, joey, I'll fight for you, whether you know me or not, whether you trust me, whether we agree or not, and I'll fight for you whether you know me or not whether you trust me, whether we agree or not, I will fight for you, and I think that's how we, we change a culture that only knows war and say, yeah, take that same thing, but we're gonna use those tools, but we're gonna get what we want, because war never gives us what we want I mean you've seen it yourself, I mean you know firsthand, you know, I think it's really it's also who's saying it.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

It's like coming from you. It's very, very powerful you know.

Diana Oestreich:

Oh, thank you, cause it's a tough time out there. I'm just going to say it, molson speaking things, I'm like I don't know that I can take it.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

It's a lot, it's, it's hard, mean I yeah, this is this is at least from the humanitarian perspective side if this has been the most threatening, dangerous time you know that we're living in. I mean, we, you know, a lot of my colleagues are losing their jobs, a lot of my colleagues are getting attacked physically and mentally. We're living in a time where the defenders of this world are in need of defense and we're living in a time where the helpers of this world are in deep need of being helped, and it's backward. But I think I don't know. This is a time where I'm just sick of fear. Man, this is a time of faith and I'm not talking in a religious sense just like having faith in something Instead of fearing everything, I think is going to be the pathway to get us out of that cycle that we find ourselves in right now. But if you can't do it for yourself, then I mean you got to start there.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

If I don't have compassion for myself and if I can't hold the multiple perspectives and contradictions within myself, then how the hell am I going to do that for other people?

Diana Oestreich:

Right, but I feel like it's the heart. It's the hardest for me. I'm like I can show up for other people. I can fight for my kids because I want them to know their value. I want them to know that they're into. The world needs them to be themselves. But to show up for myself, I feel like sometimes it's way harder to do that.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

It's like man yeah, that's all of us, Anyone that's in service or in community service, social, I mean. That that's why a lot of us burn out and that's why a lot of activists and peace builders are burning out. That that's why a lot of activists and peace builders are burning out. That's why, you know, in America there was a time a few years ago where the suicide rates of physicians was higher than the military and like that's. You know. So that focus, for example last year, was I had to be so mentally clean with myself before I did anything going in there, because what are you bringing in with you? And it took months of preparation to like really be grounded and really be forgiving and and and being, as the saying goes, the rest between the notes, taking time to prepare and rest and like re-energize and then after guys are the same thing, I think like, but people don't have that, that luxury.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

I remember being I was in a, a nutrition clinic that was also acting in gaza and rafa as the bombs were falling, and it was a mobile clinic that was also acting as like a first point of care, right for people that were injured, and the doctors and nurses, who were palestinian themselves, have been displaced, five, six, seven times.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Themselves are starving and hungry and thirsty, themselves are grieving, and they hadn't stopped. And in between their shifts we had 45 minutes in between their shifts where 40 or so of them came into the one space of the mobile clinic with me and it was the first moment in months they told me where they just were able to sit, to breathe and to share stories about some of the lives that they were able to save, instead of just holding it all in that. That was oxygen for them, that 45 minutes. You know what I mean, because before they they reasonably so they felt like they didn't have no time or space, and it wasn't. We have to go like people are dropping all around us, like. But there's also this other element of is like, like we have to fight. I think a part of peace building and peace is also fighting to make a space for yourself, for rest, for reflection.

Diana Oestreich:

You're one of the only humanitarians or peace builders or activists that I've heard has either said out loud or admitted. I had to have some time before I went into that. I had to be spiritually clean, mentally clean. I had to have some time before I went into that. I had to be spiritually clean, mentally clean. I needed to care for myself first. There's the people who run in when the house is burning, and that's a lot of the people who do this work, and I think it comes at a cost where I don't think about taking care of myself.

Diana Oestreich:

When you've been in a place of bombs and bullets, they're just like that ricochets in my body and that's why, I'm here and that's why I can't not, but that doesn't remind me that I still got to take care of me too, because it compels you to do the work, but it doesn't always remind you that you have the trauma from the reason why you care so much is because, it's connected to you inside of you.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Yeah, that has its own but, then, I also had my my friend, who always checks me. He's like he's a neuroscientist, his name's mike, nick and chuck, and it was two days before I knew I was going to go into Gaza and he was talking to me and he was like stay alive. And then he's when you go in there, he's like leave the things that brought you to this work out to a degree, because in our field too, there's a tendency sometimes where we are unaware or not conscious enough of how much of our own heaviness and pain and suffering we're actually bringing into a space. And it was really helpful for me because it really helped me clean my intention and I realized I needed to take space. I had the privilege, obviously, of really paying attention.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

For me it was tapping into my spirituality and calling on spiritual leaders that I could trust to actually help me get centered and clean my intention. And that includes I did a sweat ceremony with people from indigenous communities here in North America and it really helped a lot too. There was just things that I had the privilege of doing and experiencing that really helped. But I think we're not paying enough attention to that as practitioners who are coming from a privileged space to actually really practice what we preach. I think it's super important.

Diana Oestreich:

Well, thank you for saying that. Thank you for being in Gaza with healthcare workers. I'm also an RN and my husband is a physician and he cares for the folks outside of the system.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Wow.

Diana Oestreich:

There's an honor of that. It's sacred. Many of us know that. Many of us are still not okay from COVID. I think caring for those means so much to me because I want every healthcare person to get to share the stories I did hospice nursing right out of nursing school. I'm like, who is this 23-year-old right?

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

You've had a life.

Diana Oestreich:

But I knew that I would come home at midnight. Often there's a 3 to 11 shift. I get home at midnight and then I would just need to tell the story of the person who died.

Diana Oestreich:

So I'd lay in bed and my husband would hug me and he'd hear about Dolores, who made egg cartons for her job at a factory and never got married because she stayed home to take care of her dad who was sick, got married because she stayed home to take care of her dad who was sick. I needed to cry and tell Dolores's story in order to honor her and, in a way, close that part of where I got to take care of her as she passed. You could say you don't know this person. You only knew them three days ago. I don't know. There's something deeply humane. I grieve Dolores Whether she was a good person, but I don't know there's something deeply humane. I grieve dolores whether she was a good person.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

I don't know what she did she could have been a mass murder but I needed to grieve dolores and that was kind of my process was telling their story and then I could re-enter the next story I think it's really beautiful what you're sharing, because it speaks to like a lot of what we teach in in me, we, which is, I think there's a writer, mary Oliver, and she said in the end, all we ever are and will remain as is stories. It's not going to be governments, nations, banks, currencies. It's the stories that survive, that are eternal, they can be, and our stories and how we hold them, how I hold your stories, diana, and how you hold mine, how you held Dolores's. If we can master that, then that's how our stories can live on forever.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

And I firmly believe that every word, every eye glance, every breath, every tone, every point of body language is energy, and that's what we teach communication is. Communication is not the news and it's not Instagram. Communication is the giving and receiving of energy, and stories is the vessel through which we give and receive energies in really profound ways. And so when you're sharing about Dolores, I can't help but thinking that, because that's what it is, there was something conducting you from an energy and a frequency to talk about Dolores. Rest in peace, dolores, right, wherever you are, and that's a human need. And the second we lose that, we lose compassion and empathy, and that's dangerous.

Diana Oestreich:

Right. And there's research that says that when people make small talk with strangers as they're going about their day, so it's not a deep conversation, it's not a trusted relationship, it's a stranger in the line at the grocery store. Research says those people are happier, which makes no sense. Our culture tells us to invest deeply in our own relationships and our own things. But when you talk about the transfer of energy, it's legit. I talked to the dudes in my hardware store. We have a great time. I bump into somebody and you have that little look. You don't even say something. But sometimes, if you're in line with somebody and we're all kind of laughing because something's happening, I have no idea why I am feeling this ricochet of joy, because me and a stranger are slightly winking, laughing because something is happening in front of us. But there is something where, if I would just tune out earbuds, I would miss this and it gives something to me and I'm still befuddled by it.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

This for me is community, because that's the feeling of community, that's the feeling of being seen and able to bear witness to something else, and then from that community there's a connectedness and as human beings, that is what keeps us alive, is community, and without community connectedness we cease to be a species.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

So there's something deep within all of us that is hungry for that interaction that you're talking about and it is important every day, you know, and it is an important ingredient for peace building and for peace.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

And if I were again just to talk about our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Gaza, if there were something that we could all learn from them because they're not just victims, they're testaments to humanity it's they've maintained that, they have maintained a sense of community. I saw it in Rafa Women making ovens to bake animal feed and make some type of bread, but using mud and sand and seawater and then sharing it. Kids making tents out of trash and sharing it and flying it in the sky, where there's black smoke rising from shelling or a bomb blast right, like community is everything and it's an important element of peace. And I think the thing that drives me is you can't have that without communication and we are walking around, really underestimating the energy and the shaping of our brains and our psychologies and our relationships that words have on us, that narratives have on us, and I think the neuroscience and the research is catching up now. But communication and storytelling, I think, is a very critical ingredient for peace that needs to be taken seriously.

Diana Oestreich:

It's so encouraging for me to hear, because some of it, some of what I hear oftentimes when I speak in places. Well, we'll be plain about it. If I speak in churches about nonviolence and about peace, there's veterans who come up to me after and they're like, hey, I had the same experience. But you know, I can't tell anybody here because I don't want to rock the boat or not belong and I know they'll hate it because somehow Christians hate nonviolence, though Jesus completely disarmed violence to lay down the sword, melt down the sword and make a garden tool.

Diana Oestreich:

So I think that there's this thing of communication where we're scared to speak the truth of something, to communicate something about ourselves. And I wonder, when you say about how we're being shaped by the communication, or even lack of, I always kind of come back to is it greed Instead of communicating for community's sake or for connection? Are we throwing out words out of greed to shore up more of our own idea, to shore up more of our own commodities or wealth or influence? If communication is for greed instead of connection, is that what we're seeing? There's so much that is not serving people when they're communicating. It is caustic, it's making other people scared to communicate.

Diana Oestreich:

It is like there's one person talking and then everybody's got to be a follower. But you're to say something, because there is pushback, not respectful disagreement. Communication seems to be fueled a little bit by greed right now. It doesn't feel equal, it doesn't feel connected, it doesn't feel like people are using communication for community.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

I would agree with that. I would add to that this is very different in different cultures, like indigenous cultures. It's very different than, for example, where my family's from, in Kashmir or in Palestine. But I would say, in America right now there is an acceptance of communication, approaching communication as a tool for transaction. Communication is very transactional. I will say this thing and I will get this thing and you will give me this thing, and it's very transactional.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

When the philosopher Babbage wrote, you know, communication and language was meant to be a continuation of things. It wasn't meant to be a transaction for a specific output. And that's what community is. Community is not a fixed output of something. Community is, as I've said before, is a living, breathing organism of change. It's a process before is a living, breathing organism of change. It's a process. And so I would add to what you said is it might not be singularly greed, but certainly that's an element. But I would say meta-wise, even more like scoped out it would be.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

We're approaching communication from a very transactional lens. It's either security or conflict. It's either I vote for this person or I vote for that person. It's either I get this degree. Therefore I'm going to get this job If I'm this color and I live in this zip code, then I probably can expect X, Y and Z income tax bracket or whatever. That's not what communication is. Communication is a process and community is a process, but if we keep approaching it as if it's a fixed thing, then we're going to keep weaponizing communication, and that's the time that we're living in. Communication has become a weapon instead of an actual tool for cohesion and growth, which is why the human species created this concept of communication tens of thousands of years ago you know, and I love that you're using communication.

Diana Oestreich:

You say that communication is a space for transformation yes and I think taking something that has been so weaponized like communication is being used to weaponize people against each other, and you are reclaiming that and saying no. Communication is where we create the space for transformation, and I think that it's the bullseye to aim at. It is truth, it is a calling people to something that says this is what you can choose to use communication for yes, transformation.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

What is it that? Again, it's science too. Right? It was that first law of thermodynamics, right matter can neither be created nor destroyed, but only transformed I have a whole thing on that because, being a cancer nurse and hospice nurse, people die.

Diana Oestreich:

We know how much they weigh, but the weight of the entire earth never changes, mohsen. Wow so you have a 250-pound person who dies and say he's cremated, but somehow energy is neither gained nor lost, and yet the weight of the Earth never changes. And I'm like where does it?

Diana Oestreich:

go, it doesn't leave, but I physically saw a person. This weight and space on the planet Earth is gone, but their weight, that's so cool. We're not just the weight of our bodies and you can never take that away. So when people talk about the great cloud of witnesses and the saints and the martyrs, they're here. Their weight is here with us Because it doesn't change Even when someone chooses to take a life of a Palestinian life, and their weight and their witness is here. You can take the body, but you can't somehow take.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Yeah, the essence, yeah, the energy.

Diana Oestreich:

I don't understand it, but I've been so encouraged by getting to hear about your work and before we wrap up, I always ask people three questions and they're totally for fun and they're rapid fire, so don't think too hard. I know you're an intellect, so don't work too hard on this one. I kick these around with my teenagers.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

I love it. Let's do it, let's go with it.

Diana Oestreich:

Mohsin, all right, rapid fire. What is your superpower?

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Compassion.

Diana Oestreich:

How do you play? Humor with humor what is your purpose?

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

to heal myself and to try and help others heal themselves around. That's right. Wow, that was good. I will tell you.

Diana Oestreich:

I ask people after I interview them, and when they come down to what's their purpose, they say exactly what I see. So I'm always like yeah that's so cool.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

I love that. I love that. Thank you for for that space and that invitation to answer those. That was really. That was beautiful, thank you.

Diana Oestreich:

You're welcome. So tell your kids at the dinner table tonight what your superpower is.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Oh great, I'm going to ask them that you gave me something to do tonight with my kids at dinner time. I appreciate that, but like Molson.

Diana Oestreich:

thank you so much for being here. What is one way that people can support your work, support you and learn more about how they can be part of supporting people who are all the places that you're working right now, but especially the folks in Gaza?

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Yeah, look into our work and share it. We're a storytelling organization, so we uplift and put out stories from the community as well, so stories for us are transformational energies and powers that the world needs to have access to. Representing the underrepresented, I think, is key If you could follow us on Instagram at MeWe International or go to our website, meweintl. org and then donating. We are a community based and led organization, so every donation really really matters. Especially in these times where budgets are being cut, aid is being cut we really do need support, so donations really help. So if we can get some monthly donors to be on this movement with us, I'd really appreciate that.

Diana Oestreich:

Well, this community, the Wage and Peace community, we really believe in ordinary people showing up and committing acts of courage that create justice and joy. This is an action. I call it the Wage and Peace Project because I think of your eighth grade science project, where someone has a notebook, someone's making a experiment. Peace is the best, most fun group project we're ever going to be part of. People here are always committed to showing up, and then they're also always committed to showing up with their money, because we can't all do what you do, we can't all travel, but we can all be part of investing. And so I tell people again like your monthly 25 bucks, choose right now and be committed, and that is a 10.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

It helps a lot. It helps a lot. I appreciate you giving us the space to be heard and supported and seen. It means a lot to me. So thank you for what you're doing and what you have done. You know what you'll continue to do.

Diana Oestreich:

Right, and we'll keep up with you and we'll hear stories when you come back. Who knows, maybe we'll get to do a trip together. I feel like there's a lot of good things going to happen together.

Mohsin Mohi-Ud-Din:

Yeah, 100, we're connected now that's right, we change energy.

Diana Oestreich:

Thank you for sharing your stories with us most blessings, salam, take care.

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Diana K Oestreich

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