How To Adopt A Soul-Centric Lifestyle

At The Inner Space, Maysar Sarieddine and Nour Fayad are committed to finding answers to mental health concerns, using their eclectic multi-modality stance. Their non-conventional yet highly effective approaches are what set them apart from the typical therapists or psychologists. The duo is committed to teaching people to unlock their inner power to transform their lives. Via a range of varying principles, such as psychology, philosophy, hypnotherapy, spirituality, and soul transformation therapy, their service is uniquely tailored to each individual’s journey.

Maysar is an architect, a businessman, a philosopher and a psychologist whose life motto is to educate people for the sole purpose of liberation. He firmly believes in empowering individuals to lead their lives with autonomy and independence. Nour who holds a diploma in Holistic Counseling is also licensed as a counselor, a Soul Plan Practitioner and teacher, and a Soul Transformational Therapist. She is an empathetic listener and a compassionate witness to the spectacular transformations her clients have experienced.

Here they enlighten TRU &Beyond founder Miriam Abadi on the process of self-growth.

Please could you both give us a short introduction to yourselves?

NF: I'm Nour Fayad, I'm a spiritual therapist and a holistic counselor. I was an interior designer by profession and 10 years ago I moved into spiritual psychology. I got my Masters in it, and my diploma in Holistic Healing and Holistic Counseling. Together, Maysar and I opened The Inner Space back in 2016 - a space where our mission is to infuse clinical psychology, and mainstream psychology with spirituality. We are here to add a new dimension to the traditional psychology model and see if people would be interested in accessing that new dimension and to deal with their lives from that new perspective.

MS: I wear many hats! So I'm an architect, by profession. I am also a philosopher, a spiritual psychologist, and a doctor in psychology. I also came across the University of Santa Monica back in 2010 which took me on a total shift in my career and in my perspective on life. It was a life-changing experience for me, which led me to The Inner Space.

 After COVID, introspection became a huge part of people’s lives so a concept like The Inner Space sounds like the perfect place to explore that. Could you tell us a little bit about The Inner Space and where it is based?

NF: The Inner Space is based in Beirut in a UNESCO area. It is a safe space for people to come in and learn the basic principles of spiritual psychology to access a new dimension of reality. We provide a totally new spiritual dimension. COVID, floods, earthquakes, etc are all on a planetary level a call for people to wake up. For people to understand that there is more to life than the physicality of it. We are here to grow the community of those people who are ready to evolve into that dimension, to access it, and to really start looking at their lives from more a soul-centric perspective. This is the objective of The Inner Space and the work that we do here.

What is the concept of spiritual psychology that you adopted from the University of Santa Monica? And what does it do?

MS: If we look up the word psychology in the dictionary, it is described as the scientific study of physical behavior and mental processes. But then if you break down the word, it's psyche and logos. Psychy means the breadth of life or the toll, and logos is the knowledge. So originally psychology was the study of the soul. And then through time it evolved, became the study of the mind, then the study of the brain. And today what we are saying is spiritual psychology brings back the soul into the heart of psychology because that's exactly where it needs to be. So, I think the concept of spiritual psychology is rooted in three basic questions. I think if everyone is able to answer those honestly and authentically, we would resolve the mystery of life or why we're here on this planet. So, the first question is: Who am I? Beyond this physical body? I'm not my name, I'm not my job, I'm not whatever I do - a very quick answer to that is that we are all spiritual beings. Often these thoughts can span into an existential crisis prompting the second main question: What's my purpose? And very quickly the third question that arises is: How can I make a meaningful contribution?

If one were to do your workshop and then repeat it after a few years would the results be any different?

MS: I'll talk about my personal experience. I've done this workshop three times, and each time I had a different experience. We are constantly evolving as spiritual beings therefore the way I understand or engage with the workshop today is not going to be the same two years from now or five years from now, because we all change. We are used to the duality of our ego, our negative and positive experiences define us. We always want to transform the negative experience into a positive one. And once it's positive, we crave more of that positivity. This workshop aims to wake people up to different dimensions and provide a shift in perspective. It changes your intellectual filters.

NF: This workshop is a multidimensional workshop by nature. This means that today if you come to the workshop, you get what you are ready to get from it; you will learn what you are ready to learn for this period of your life. You will leave the workshop showing up differently in your relationships, in your career, and in the organizations you work with. You start coming from a more, soul-centric perspective, and then things start evolving. This workshop is all about awakening - awakening into a spiritual reality that needs us to love the energy and the essence of who we are. Everything in life including all religions, tells you that if you take a specific path and direction, you will be enlightened, and you will wake up and find your true essence. Therefore, the multi-dimensional workshop works differently for different times in your life and to get different things. When you start moving from an ego-centric perspective to a soul-centric perspective, the challenges that come through are difficult because you're not used to functioning from that space.

I believe your workshop is not just about cascading down information but also very interactive. Is it a very hands-on experience?

MS: Correct. It is a highly experiential workshop. It is emotionally and mentally taxing. It's heavy, because you are really dealing with your deep emotions in a safe space where you can explore those things. Of course, you're going to experience a lot of ups and downs in your feelings as you engage with the material. But what I can say is that how you come in is totally different from how you leave the workshop. Our role is 20% of the workshop, explaining the material and giving more depth to the material. But the rest of the work is done by the participants who partake in all the experiential exercises. That's the power of it -  you learn something and you apply it within a very safe, sacred environment.

NF: The workshop is for three days, from 9:00am to 6:30pm every day, so it's quite intense. It is designed to really push people out of their comfort zone. There's no point in staying in your comfort zone to explore. It is all about exploring and revisiting your unresolved issues so that you learn how to come to a resolution with them. People will learn nine skills in the workshop, they are basic skills for spiritual psychology. And for each skill we will be introducing, they will get to work within groups of three people, which we refer to as ‘Trios’. One is the shareer -  the person who shares their own experience and what they want to work on. It's totally up to them what they bring to the table. The second person is the facilitator who uses the handouts provided and guides the shareer to explore their issue further and for the facilitator to listen to them, to read them, to hear them. And the third role is of the neutral observer, the person who is just sitting in silence and holding the energy of everyone, which I believe is the most challenging role. These Trios are really well designed to enhance communication. A global problem, and I share this problem, is that we do not know how to communicate and we do not know how to listen. So, the responsibility is not only for the person to share, the responsibility is for the other person to really receive what you are sharing, and validate how you feel. So the Trio exercise is a great format where people come together and take three different roles for each skill.

So you both have experienced this spiritual psychology in the United States, but who is the person who founded the whole concept?

NF: Maysar started this. He was somebody who was very successful in the material life and the physical line of life, a good business, a good income, a good life, all of this, but miserable deep down inside. And this is basically the wake-up call you need, that even if you succeed on a business level but you’re not finding purpose in the things that you have done and the work that you're doing, it means nothing. Then we met - we happen to be husband and wife, and we are an great example of why our methodology works, because we are still together despite the increased rates of divorces globally. He encouraged me to get my Masters in Spiritual Psychology - I had no background in psychology whatsoever, but it's something I love. And I have this energy or maybe the character where people always came to me for these kinds of suggestions. And this is how we made it through to here.

Can you share with us any other insights or any other feedback that people have given you post the workshops?

NF: Every one of the participants in June had their own experience based on their readiness and why they came through. It was so interesting how they all started, they were lost. They were thinking in the wrong and right, are we doing the right thing in the exercise? Am I really following? What should I be doing? They were skeptical. Understandably so as everyone around them is new, everybody came from different backgrounds. We had a life coach, somebody who's working with the UN and a medical doctor. The diversity of the group was such a nice diversity. By the second exercise, you just start feeling more connected, and you know what happened on the second day -  a few people were somehow avoiding working with other people initially - they came and shared, that ‘I was really trying to avoid her. I don't know, energetically, I didn't want to be with her and the trio.’ And then there was this moment when they sat in front of each other and they burst into tears. And what brought them together are super similar stories. Two women who shared the same story together started crying before they even shared what it was. The way they could relate to one another was really magical. They left the workshop as a family, feeling like they missed each other the next day. And this is what we're looking for. We're not looking for a certain number of people, but people who are really willing to come with us and to share this experience with us. As we teach those participants the skills, they teach us so much more in the process. And this is what will also help us enhance the work, and know what they want.

MS: They experience a change in perspective, a change in the outlook on life, a change in how they deal with themselves and how they deal with people around them. Self-compassion, I think this is one thing that everyone spoke about, self-compassion and forgiveness. They go out flooding themselves with a lot of compassion, a lot of empathy, and also to forgive themselves for anything that they have been through or things they believe they have done wrong or things that they judge themselves for. So there is definitely a shift.

Women here in the Middle East are caregivers by nature, but we really tend to forget about ourselves. Have you had any experience with people deciding at a later age to focus on themselves?

NF: The perception of a woman in the Arab world is always about sacrifice. To be a giver or a loving person or good enough in the work that they do they need to sacrifice their life for their kids and it's never about the compromise between the partners. It's the sacrifice of the mother. And it's very common for women to get that wake-up call later in life -  they consider 60 years old late – her kids  are grown-ups, they left, they have their own kids and their own lives. Then the internal questions begin. And in the Arab world, the only roadblock I think is that they think it's too late to do anything. and to find themselves at a certain age. This is a notion we are also trying to change.

MS: You know, Miriam, when we were doing the program in the States, each workshop, has around 600 to 700 participants. You will be amazed that there were people who were doing their Masters in Spiritual Psychology at the age of 80 and 82. Those people, they don't give up. There's no limit to when you can start.

Please tell us about when the workshop in coming to Dubai and where? 

MS: It's the 27th, 28th and 29th of October at the Dubai International Academic City. Three full days, from 9am-6.30pm, all three days need to be attended because they are sequential and they build on one another. There is a certificate of completion that we offer at the end of the workshop from the University of Santa Monica and The Inner Space for all our participants. This will allow them to, complete some other programs in spiritual psychology at the university, it counts as a prerequisite.