Taban Shoresh of The Lotus Flower
What is your pain for?
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 270: Taban Shoresh
Here's a question. What is your pain for?
I'm Charles Day. I believe that leadership offers us the greatest opportunity of our lives, to make a difference. I'm asked to help leaders discover what they're capable of, and then to maximize their impact. Welcome to the intersection of strategy and humanity.
This episode's conversation is with Taban Shoresh. She's the Founder of The Lotus Flower, a UK-based charity that supports women and girls that have been displaced by conflict, and helps them to build sustainable futures. Since 2016, the charity's projects have impacted more than 60,000 women, girls, and community members.
Every now and then, you meet someone whose story stops you in your tracks. Taban’s story starts with her being arrested in Iraq at the age of four. Three weeks later, she's ordered onto a bus that will take her to the place where she and other members of her family will be buried alive.
“There have been moments in my life, especially in my teen years, where I have wanted everything to end. And that feeling is quite a scary feeling. I never want that feeling to come back. And so for me to sit with so many traumatic experiences, instead of sitting with my pain and letting it fester from the inside, I decided to give it a purpose and go, well, you've happened, but you've happened for a reason. And this is the good that can come out of the reason. And so it makes my pain so much more acceptable.”
At the end of 2021, before Russia invaded the Ukraine or the war in Gaza, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide stood at 89.3 million. There were 27.1 million refugees globally, half of whom were aged under 18, which makes Taban's story one of millions and completely unique.
She has experienced staggering trauma, she has known realities that I'm sure I would not have survived, and she has taken all of that pain and turned it into creative leadership of the most consequential kind. As you'll hear, for reasons both global and personal, she's in a hurry.
All of us have suffered pain. What we use it for is a question that will stay with me for a long time after this conversation.
Here's Taban Shoresh.
Charles:
Taban, welcome to Fearless. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Taban Shoresh:
Thank you so much for having me.
Charles:
I know a little bit about your story because we met in Cannes, and wanted to hear more. So I'm not going to start with my usual question because it just doesn't seem to fit the moment. What I’d like to do is for you to tell me and us your story. So let's just go back to the beginning. I was born…
Taban Shoresh:
I was born into conflict. So I'm Kurdish and my dad was a poet, and he was also a freedom fighter, so a Peshmerga at that time. He was very heavily involved in politics from a very young age. And a Peshmerga, a political activist, and a poet, were just on the wanted list because he had, I guess, the power in all three different ways to get people to rise up. And so that's why we were on the target list for Saddam Hussein. So the moment I was born, I was–
Charles:
–You were born into a target list.
Taban Shoresh:
I was born into conflict because it was the Iran and Iraq war at this time, as well. So, 1981 was during the Iran and Iraq war. And environment-wise, it was a very active war. So sirens would go off, people go to the bomb bunkers, you'd hear bombs dropping. That was that war that was going on. But then the Kurds, who were politically active, were also persecuted by Saddam Hussein. So we were almost dodging two deaths at the same time.
And I guess the childhood would've looked very much, don't speak to anyone, you can't trust anyone. Don't say, you've seen your dad. Don't say, he might be hiding in that room. Don't talk to anyone. Everyone's dangerous. So you are born into fear instantly. You are born into fear. You are born into not trusting people, but it's also surrounded. I was surrounded by a lot of love from my extended family, you know, they protected us a lot, especially my older brother and myself and my mom.
Charles:
How many siblings do you have?
Taban Shoresh:
So I have three now. So there's four of us, but at that time, it was my older brother and myself that went through experiences. But our experience was also very different. And that's because, so at the age of four, my mom had, because she was working while bringing us up, but she was essentially a single mom, because my dad was always in the mountains fighting. So he never really came down. If he did come down, he would sneak to see us and then he'd go back. So we didn't really have a present father when we were growing up. And my mom would have to sneak to go and see him, and that would be going to the villages or the mountains. But every time she took time off from work, she'd be interrogated by the secret police, as to try and get information out of her.
And I think that had taken its toll. And she decided that she wanted to leave work. Following day when they came to my grandparents' house to take her in for questioning, and I happened to be playing in the garden. And when they knocked on the garden gates, I ran to my uncle when he opened the door. And my uncle knew instantly, as soon as he opened the door, and there was Iraqi soldiers there, that they were there for my mom and to take her away for questioning. So he tried to deter them by saying, “They've got divorced because of this child.” And kind of patted me on the head. And they looked down and said, “So this is the enemy's child.” And they continued to ask for my mom. And when my mom came out, they took me, as well. And when they took us, my paternal grandparents, my dad's parents, were already in the car, so they'd taken them before.
And so they took the four of us into a prison to be questioned first. I was just in the corner kind of witnessing them questioning the adults. And they didn't give any information away.
Charles:
You're how old at this point?
Taban Shoresh:
Four, four and a half. I don't remember everything, but I remember certain bits. I remember the moment they took us to prison. I remember kind of going to the second prison when everyone came to the windows. I remember sitting in that interrogation room, just kind of watching the adults go in. But mostly as a child I remember the feeling of, I need to be invisible so they don't see me. I don't, I'm not allowed to cry. I didn't want to make any noise. Kind of knowing that the adults were going through something, and I just couldn't and shouldn't be a child at that point. That's a very strong feeling that I do remember.
Anyway, after that they took them to…they took us to a second prison, which was just full of Kurds. And you had one building, which was women and children, and the other building, which was men. So my grandfather was separated from us and taken to the men's prison. And I went to the women and children's with my grandmother and my mother. And we were there for about two, three weeks until they called some family names. And our names were on the list and we thought would be released. But actually it was, as soon as we went out, the adults realized that we were going to be driven to our death.
So at that time, Saddam Hussein's regime would commit the genocide in various ways. And mass live burials was a very big prominent way. That's why Iraq has the largest number of missing people in the world. And it's because of all the mass burials and it's scattered around the country.
So we were meant to be buried live. We were taken and halfway through the driving we were intercepted by something, but I think it was planned. And this is where, I don't know how they, how it would've been planned. I don't understand how the ins and outs of it would've worked. But what had happened is, two Kurdish people had switched drivers with the regime drivers. So they must have been paid to rescue us. And they drove on and halfway through driving, they stopped the cars and buses and said, “We're not going to kill you, we're Kurdish, but you need to disappear, and pretend as if you're dead. Because if you are caught, you'll be killed on the spot.”
So everyone was let go and we eventually found our way to a road. And–
Charles:
You're in the middle of nowhere.
Taban Shoresh:
Completely in the middle of nowhere. So everyone just scattered and found their own way. We went to a road, and my grandfather stopped a taxi, which happened to be one of his old students, which I don't understand how that even happened. But he was shocked and said, “What are you doing in the middle of nowhere with your family?” And my grandfather just said, “Don't ask any questions. You just need to sneak us and drive us back into the city without anyone realizing.”
So they did. And we didn't go back to my grandparents’ or my mom's parents' house because, if they found out that we'd escaped, it would be the first place that they look. So we went back to my mom's stepsister's house, and they were all wearing black. They'd already started a funeral because the message had got through to them that we were being buried alive.
And so they'd already started mourning us. And when we walked in, I'm pretty sure they were very shocked to see us there. But my dad had sent a message already to say that we couldn't stay in the city. And my grandparents decided to stay and said they were going to go into hiding, because some of these homes, you'd make secret rooms basically. It'd either be in the basement or it'd be behind a wall. There were secret rooms that you could hide in and they must have decided to stay there. But my mother decided to take me and go to the south of Iraq, where she had a stepbrother. And because it was Arab-populated, it would be the least likely place that they would search, and she speaks Arabic. The only thing is, it meant that I had to stay indoors for three months because I only spoke Kurdish and that would've given things away.
And it was after that experience that she put her foot down and told my dad, “We need to leave this country because either way we're going to end up dying.” And he eventually agreed, and that started a journey of us picking up my brother, going into different cities, which was very dangerous at that time because they would do random house searches, and we were caught in one of them. Absolute miracle, where they stopped doing the house searches in the house that we were at. So we'd been hidden in barrels and they decided to stop doing the house searches. And it was only our house that was left. I don’t know how that happened. But I think we've been protected in many ways.
Charles:
You just said you were hiding in barrels.
Taban Shoresh:
So the first thing that we did was, we picked up my brother, and we were taken to a friend's house who was going to hide us for a little bit until the next friend would pick us up.
And that's how it worked, was networks of one friend would pass us on to the next village, and it was a network of all fighters and activists that would pass us along until we got to safety. First place that we got to was in the city of Sulaymaniyah, and the regime was very prominent there. And the house, that road that we were on, the regime had decided to do house searches. They would do random house searches in every single house. And if they found anyone, they would execute and kill them on the spot. And so that day, there was a random search that had started, and the only place to hide us was in flour and rice barrels. So we went into hiding into there. But they stopped just before that house. So they searched the house next to us, but for some reason, they just stopped there.
Charles:
So you would hear that they were coming, they were on the street, that they were coming, and there was already planned for, if this happens, this is where you are going to hide. So every house you went to as part of the network would have some version of that?
Taban Shoresh:
There would be some, yeah, there would be some place to hide. Some places had secret rooms, some places had barrels, some places had bomb bunkers. Yeah, all places had them. It's really surreal. But the houses then were built for wharf.
Charles:
So you're still under five years old when this is happening to you?
Taban Shoresh:
Yeah, yeah. So still under five, my brother's around six. And then after that house, another friend kind of took us. And we would be taken to villages that were deserted, because during the Iran and Iraq war, the bombs were dropping in these regions, but then you'd find Kurdish fighters or Peshmergas in some of these villages. And so it would be two wars at the same time. And in some of these villages, we'd get stuck for two weeks as the only family. I mean one particular village, we were stuck for two, three weeks with just fighters, because the bombardment was so heavy that we couldn't, there was no way for us to go anywhere further.
Charles:
So you're under threat from Saddam Hussein's regime, and you're also being bombed by Iranians simultaneously. So depending on where you go in the country, one of those threats becomes more prominent than the other.
Taban Shoresh:
Yeah, yeah. And then sometimes they both collide, they both meet in the middle. So you are confronted with both. And in some of those instances, that's how it was. But the network of, I guess, Peshmergas was so strong, they would protect the families of fighters and try and get them through. So it was all based on friends. One friend would collect us to the next place, to the next place, and my dad would come and meet us sometimes. And then he'd go, and then he'd meet us and then he'd go, we'd take over houses that weren't ours. You'd go there, it’s deserted, and then we'd go and live in it. You might find one or two families there, maybe one. But again, they were families of Peshmergas.
And that carried on for about 12 months until we were smuggled into Iran, for safety. And the reason why Iran would've been the safest place to go at that time is because they were backing or they were supportive of the Kurds. They were protecting the Kurds from Saddam Hussein. But when you're in these villages and you are just a dot, they don't really know that you're occurred. So the bombs carry on dropping because it's in Iraq.
Charles:
Was there a… long-term goal is ridiculous, obviously, but was there a goal beyond the next two or three or four weeks beyond the next move? Were you conscious that you were trying to get to a situation that was ultimately going to be stable? Were you trying to get to Europe? What was it–
Taban Shoresh:
Yeah, so–
Charles:
What was the goal or the plan, if there was one?
Taban Shoresh:
I remember you'd have bombs dropping and everything. And sometimes our family, like our parents, would sit down and comfort us and say… you know, I remember this very particular conversation of, don't worry, we're going to end up in France soon. And they've got flavored yogurts, which is [inaudible]. (Laughs) We didn't know what flavored yogurts were, or there's bananas there, and, like, things that we'd never really had before. But we're trying to kind of convince children it's coming, this is where we're heading. So it was definitely Europe that we were heading towards, but I think it was France that we were aiming to get to first. And so when we went into Iran, my dad was meant to meet us, but a husband and wife who were Kurdish were hired by Saddam Hussein to poison a group of men. And he was part of that group.
And so what they did was they laid out a massive feast for this group of men. And because they're Kurdish and they laid out a feast, nobody would think anything about it, because it's what you did for the Peshmergas. And so when they laid out the feast, they'd put the poison in a yogurt drink that we have, which is mastaw. And they knew the poison was in the yogurt drink. So they sat down to eat, so nobody would suspect anything. But the men that gulped down the drinks, I think two men died on the spot. And by that point, they knew we'd been poisoned. So my dad and two other men had drunk enough to make them critically ill, and if they didn't get medical treatment, they would've died. So they were taken to the border of Iran. And the night that they brought the men, we, I remember my dad being brought in really ill.
But then the morning after, Amnesty International had picked up on the story and flown them to the UL, well, flown him and another to the UK, and the other guy was flown to France.
So he came here, he got medical treatment for a few months and was in hospital and he looked like that Russian spy Litvinenko, you know, he was poisoned, similar poison, and looked exactly like him. And we had to wait for him to basically survive. And we ended up in the UK a year later. So we stayed in Iran for about a year.
Charles:
If he had died in the UK, you would not have been brought over.
Taban Shoresh:
I don't think so. We had to wait for him to survive. I mean, I don’t know the ins and outs of that, but the paperwork, you know, the amnesty paperwork on all the documents were for him and his poisoning. And we had to wait for him to survive for us to be reunified.
Charles:
Did he recover?
Taban Shoresh:
He recovered. So he survived and recovered. So he came here in 1987 and then we followed in 1988. The environment was so different to what it is now. I mean, we'd never… things that I do remember are, we'd never been on a plane. So we didn't understand how we were sitting down in the middle of the air. Or when we arrived, we'd never seen different cultures, we'd never seen different skin colors, we'd never seen men with long hair. So many differences that we'd just never ever seen. We'd never seen houses with, like, triangular, because it's all flat rooftops. So much of what we saw when we arrived was so different to what we left. You do kind of remember those differences. The weather was very different. The underground, the first time we went on the underground was the scariest experience, and those were the days where you could smoke. So my dad was smoking on the underground.
Charles:
Who was there to explain all of this to you? Were there people around who would help you understand, or were you just as a family going through this journey of massive culture shock and trying to figure it out for yourselves?
Taban Shoresh:
So when my dad had arrived, a family had made friends with him. They were like a Christian family that took him in and supported him with the system, to help him understand the system. So they were already waiting for us to arrive. The moment we arrived, we spent every weekend with them. They would drive up and take us to Kent and teach us English and start with a language. And so we did have a support network around us. You know, there were lots of, I don’t know, Human Rights Watch, Helen Bamber Foundation. There was lots of different organizations that were supporting us. And actually just saying this out loud, I've never contacted them to say any of this, but there were lots of organizations that were around and people to support us. So my dad had made quite a few friends that knew these things, and they would help us. And the environment then was so different. You know, you'd have a case manager who was completely dedicated to supporting you in anything that you needed. Whereas now, I don't even know if case managers exist. Yeah, the landscape was very different to when we came, I'd say in 1988, to now.
Charles:
Different in what way? Welcoming? More welcoming then?
Taban Shoresh:
Very welcoming. More welcoming. Obviously there were incidents where you did feel you were different, but a lot more welcoming, a lot more set up to cope with the process, a lot more supported. Everything was in place. We had the support we needed whenever we needed it. And so, I don't think that's the case now. Everyone's kind of scrambling for support if you can get it.
Charles:
Is that purely volume of people coming into the country who need it or is that a change in attitude?
Taban Shoresh:
I think it's a change in attitude, but also the system's not wanting to process. So, you know, the previous government actually stopped processing claims. They complete–of course if you stop processing claims and you've got more coming, it just becomes overwhelming and the stack just gets higher. Whereas if you process claims, and say, okay, this is a genuine refugee fleeing conflict, process that one; this one isn't. The processing stopped and this is where the backlog has really happened. And in terms of numbers, I think the numbers might almost probably lower to be honest in reality, because you had more conflicts to deal with and more people were being accepted at that time. Right now, I know they speak about 600,000 immigrants, but actually it's only 30,000, that's people that fled from all. The rest of it is, it could be a working visa that's overstayed, and so on.
So I don't, it is very difficult to tell the numbers now. They have most probably increased because of the numbers of displacement have increased worldwide. But I think the problem is that the processing is very different now. They stall the processing for a long time.
So we came here and adjusted to life, learned English. Some adjustments you had to make. It was hard kind of being a diaspora in a new country or your family, like, they're holding onto what they've left. And actually when they come here, you know, 20 years later, they're still holding onto the same thing when that's progressed 20 years ahead. So you kind of find your way as a diaspora, and that brings itself new sets of challenges, I guess.
I got married at very young age, 19 when I was married and 20 when I had my son. And so for me, that was very much still a confusion of diaspora situation, of wanting to please my culture and be part of the diaspora and be accepted, but at the same time, not being confident enough to step away from it and break the norms or break the cultural barriers.
And that was a very abusive marriage, very coercively controlling. And I managed to finally break away after six years. And even at that time that I broke away and got divorced, it was still very taboo. So I was entering an era where it was very shameful to leave a marriage, especially in my culture.
My dad, you know, after the 2003 war, he went back, because he was a journalist when he was here. So after the 2003 war, he went back and became the Cultural Minister in the Kurdish region. And so his daughter getting divorced was an extra big thing that he did not want to happen. But I think after that marriage, I came away so broken as a person. I couldn't speak to anyone, I couldn't look at anyone. There was absolutely no way I could do speaking engagements or public talking.
But I kind of rebuilt myself slowly, and ended up working in the city. I was a digital project manager for an asset management firm. And when my son finished primary school, I decided, okay, now I can do what I actually want to do, because I couldn't do it then. Because I was so dependent on having a sustainable income for my son and myself. And I'd studied international politics and wanted to get into international development, but the entry level was just… absolutely no way I could live on that. So I stuck to the corporate job, and the corporate job allowed me some sustainable secure income. But by the time he'd finished primary school, I wanted to do something different. And that's when ISIS had kind of gone into Iraq. This is in 2014. And actually in April 2014, I did a talk at the House of Lords about the Genocide Remembrance Day and my experience as a survivor. And that, the moment that I realized I wanted to do something connected to my past and didn't really understand what, and that made headlines in my asset management firm.
And when ISIS had gone into Iraq, something in me just said, I need to go back and do something to support. So I asked my CEO, of all people, for some advice. I never had a working relationship with him. But he was a bit of a, he was a visionary but also was at heart quite part of any type of movement that's around human rights. So it felt right to ask him. And I just said, “Hi Hendrick, this is not a work meeting. I need some life advice. I feel like I should be doing something but I'm not sure what.” And he just turned around and said, “Taban, you're too special for that corner desk. Can you please just go and fly?” And that's exactly what I did. I handed in my notice, I went back to Iraq.
But the only difference is, on my first day of arriving, I ended up being on the helicopters that was delivering ATVs trapped up, trapped on Mount Sinjar, and rescuing them. And this had gone on to the BBC. And it went across the whole floor of the asset management firm. And he sent me an email and said, I didn't mean literally fly. (Laughs) I went, right, okay, well, that happened.
Charles:
Let me just take you back for a second, because that transformation in you is extraordinary. So you said when you left, when you got divorced, you said you were broken, you couldn't talk to anybody, and you isolated yourself. And then you said you rebuilt yourself. How did you rebuild yourself? How did you go from that person to the person flying on the helicopter delivering aid and rescuing people in Iraq? What's the timespan between you getting divorced and the helicopter? How far apart is that?
Taban Shoresh:
So my son must have been around five or six. It would've been around five or six years.
Charles:
You rebuilt yourself in five to six years.
Taban Shoresh:
Yeah, it was phenomenal rebuilding. The marriage was so coercive that I actually believed that he would kill me if I left, because it was a constant thing that he would tell me. And this is where the universe kind of plays some magic. My son was going to a nursery and I would drop him off and I'd, you know, my head would be down, and I'd drop him off, and I never spoke to his teachers. So they thought I didn't speak English. And on the last day of school term, one of the teachers ran across the playground and just held my hand and said, “Please, can I do 10 Reiki sessions on you for free?” And I looked at her and thought, what the hell's Reiki? I didn't know what this is. But I was also ill. So I've been diagnosed with Crohn's disease from the age of 21.
I thought, well, maybe this will help with my illness and she's a woman, I think he's going to allow it. So I just said yes. And she would walk in, for 10 sessions, into my house without saying a word, because she knew that I wasn't ready to talk about anything, do the healing, and then just leave. Like, for 10 sessions, that's exactly what she would do. And I didn't really think anything about it.
And then after about a month of the final session, something had happened, and there was a big fight. And I just remember looking at my ex and thinking, actually, I'd rather die. If he's threatening to kill me, then I'd rather be dead. And at least he would do it and I don't have to do it. So I'd made that decision and just looked at him and said, “I'm going to leave you and I don't care if you kill me.”
And the next day… I didn't tell my family because, not that they wouldn't have supported me, but they would've tried to culturally fix something for the sake of so-and-so, stay together for the sake of the child, and so on. I've kind of done for the sake of everyone, and there was nobody left. And so I decided not to tell them. And I went and sold all my gold. I went to a lawyer's office and said, “This is all the money that I have. I can only process a divorce. I'm not allowed to get the police involved, because it'll get bigger and it's just worse for me. But I need to get this divorce to go through to a man that won't divorce me.” So they helped put that in process. And as soon as I knew that I overcame that hurdle, because that was such a big thing for me to do, I'd already stepped outside my comfort zone.
And then for me, I thought, okay, well, what's the next comfort zone for me to step out of? And what I realized was that I was so fearful of speaking to people, or having any form of conversation with anyone, that I decided to go on a vocal skills class, which included drama, because I used to love drama in secondary school. And I walked into the lesson… this is still, I'd say about a month after my divorce had come through. Yeah, it was 2009. And I walked in with my head down, and all I heard was, “Seva's mum!” with this massive smile. And I didn't realize it was my son's second teacher. So she was teaching the evening classes. And it was 12 weeks of just really pushing myself out of the comfort zone, of doing all these practices of drama. And after 12 weeks we were meant to go on stage with a monologue in front of an audience.
And I thought, this is, I've never done this, how am I going to do this? But I wrote my monologue, I went on stage, and I won the monologue. And I just thought, wow, I've done that. What's the next thing I can do?
And then the next thing for me was, I needed to find a secure job to be able to look after myself and my son. And I had a goal of, I need to buy at least a house for us to be safe. So, going for the city job was exactly what I needed, because it allowed me to do that. But nobody knew all the turmoils that I was going through. So every day that I went into the office, and actually just speaking to someone or speaking up in a meeting took so much effort for me to do that. That every day that I did it, I kind of thought, right, I've done it now, I've done that…
And I kept doing that every single day, so I forced myself out of my comfort zone. And then I think… this was in 2014. You know, in the corporate world, they make you do personal development, and you have to pick things, and you go on the course. And they were making us all do it. so I had to choose something. And I thought, well, what really makes me nervous was speaking in meetings. I thought I'll do a public speaking presentations one. And we went to the class, and the teacher said, “Just so I know where everyone's starting, can you all stand up and do just five minutes on your role of what you do.” And I was so nervous, I still remember this, I was so nervous. And Julian said, “Taban, can you please maybe speak about something that interests you?” And I thought, oh my gosh, I don't have any interest because I'm a single mom who's struggling, who's actually just struggling to come into the office.
So my brain froze. And he said, “Okay, speaking about a memory.” And I don't know what happened, but in that moment, I just started describing the moment I was taken from prison, from my grandmother's house, but describing it in detail, the moment I was taken, to the moment I was taken to prison. And I'd somehow gone into a zone of just describing what was in my head, without any stopping, without any hesitations. It just flowed. And by the end of it, I snapped out of it, and he went, “Is that a story that you know? Is that a memory?” I went, “Oh no, that's my childhood.” And everyone's jaw just dropped. And that's when I realized, oh, I didn't realize it would have that impact on people. And in the same week, I was asked to do the House of Lords talk. So I asked Julian to help me prepare for the House of Lords talk. And Julian just said, “You don't need any preparing; it's all in your head.”
And the moment I realized that I could use my trauma for purpose, it gave me a purpose to step out of all comfort zones and go, no, there's a reason you’re here. You can do it. That's why it made it so easy for me to have that meeting with my CEO. I would never have asked for a meeting otherwise. It was so easy for me to jump on a plane, take my son, go back to Iraq, go into a hostile environment. I mean, I'll send you the video clip afterwards, but, for me to turn around to the pilot and say, “It's all right. I'm not scared. I can go on the plane.” Like, nothing, nothing became fearful, because I'd almost experienced every type of fear that you can experience. And there are many things that I've experienced that I don't talk about publicly, and I choose not to, because I feel like I speak about so much of my life.
There are some things that I just want to keep to myself. And they are very traumatic things. So if they, if I was constantly speaking about them, I think it would impact me. And so I choose not to speak about, I'd say, a few big major things. And it gives what I do speak about and what I do, just a bit more fearless. And that fear in me is completely gone. Even now, what I do, I know that I can be a target, you know. There's 70,000 ISIS fighters in Syria, and they're being released daily. This week, I think a thousand were released into Iraq. So there's a potential of that kind of going up again. And I'd be a target for any extremist because of what I do, and encouraging women to find their power and be fearless. But I don’t know where it comes from. I think it comes from my pain.
Charles:
Your reference to wanting to get out of your own comfort zone and to sort break through to the next level, and how that was very much a fuel for you, as you went through your recovery, your rebuilding. Just expand on that a little bit. That feeling of, I don't want to stay here. I want to push myself out to an unknown difference. I don't know what's out there, but I know I don't want this. This is not enough.
Taban Shoresh:
Well, this is not enough, but also, this is too painful to sit with. I… you know, there have been moments in my life, especially in my teen years, where I have wanted everything to end. And that feeling is quite a scary feeling. And so I never want that feeling to come back. And so for me to sit with so many traumatic experiences, I don't want to sit with them. And so instead of sitting with my pain and letting it kind of fester from the inside, I decided to kind of give it a purpose, and go, well, you've happened, but you've happened for a reason, and this is the reason, and this is the good that can come out of the reason. And so, it makes my pain so much more acceptable. And for me, it's now beyond me, because I'm, like, well, if that's me, imagine all the other people in the world that have that pain.
How do I trigger it for them, to reframe it for them, to realize that yeah, you can't really take away the pain. I mean, you can do as many things as you want. You can dim it, but it'll never go away. But the best thing to do has been for me, has to give it a purpose. Because the moment you give it a purpose, then you feel like, okay, well it's happened, it's happened for a reason, but look at all the good that's come out of what's happened. So that's how I do it. And so the comfort zone becomes very fearless for me to step out of.
Charles:
So, in other words, you've paid a price by feeling the pain. Why not use that to make a difference? Why just suffer the pain and have that be the extent of your experience?
Taban Shoresh:
That's exactly it. That's exactly it.
Charles:
And is that what drives you today? When you wake up this morning, is that where you get the energy to move forward and confront the many issues you were telling me about before we started recording?
Taban Shoresh:
Yeah, completely. I mean, I think that's the one thing, when people see me move, they're like, “Taban, slow down, where'd you get this energy from?” And they're going, you don't realize there's a lot more. So it almost kind of… it gives me structure as well. And me, knowing that I can somehow help someone's life or be a trigger in someone's life to realize that, I do see it as lifesaving. Because I don't know what's going on in that person's head, and what stage they're at, and how it impacts them, and how it changes them. But the work that I do is very tangible. The moment that I hear stories like today or what's happening in Iraq, it scares me. Because it scares me of the pain that people can feel. And I know that I can't save everyone. (Laughs) But I shouldn't be in that position to save everyone. But what can I do practically and tangibly, that can help support people to find their own way out of their pain?
Charles:
Could you imagine a situation in which you decided, this is just too hard? I'm just not going to do this?
Taban Shoresh:
I can't see my life without it. So, in terms of work, I've set up this phenomenal organization and yes, it needs funding, but I am building it to step away from. So it doesn't mean the moment I step away from it, my work stops. Actually, I want to be able to build different ways to make people realize that they are still their own power. Their power is within them. And how do they tap into that? How do they find that? Everyone's going to experience bad experiences? Everyone's going to be knocked down. Like, it's just part of life. And I've accepted that it's part of life. It's how you overcome it, and figure out how to overcome it. So for me, I don't actually see my life without it, if that makes sense.
Charles:
Why are you in such a hurry?
Taban Shoresh:
Oh, why am I such a… that comes back to my illness. I mean, that's all my life story. If there's a whole, whole other area with illness. So I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease at the age of 21. And I'd say I went into remission after a very bad relapse at the start. I went into remission for about 10 years. And then in 2018, I went into a really bad relapse, which just got worse and worse. And my body was almost eating itself from the inside. And there was no way of saving me. And I became housebound for three years. I stopped eating for two years, so I had a feeding tube. But even that, I don't know how it didn't break me. I mean I was septic, I nearly died. There's just so many, I had so many major surgeries. I've lost my large intestine, I've had three stoma bags. I've now got a permanent stoma bag that I live with.
Like, all of that has been very traumatic. But yet, I don’t know how I've bounced out of it. But I do, because I've already done it before. And now I know how to do it. And so for me, even those three years, people were counting being locked in for COVID. I didn't experience COVID because I was just ill for my illness, and it started before COVID.
But I remember just going, I just said, one day at a time. Taban, what are you doing today? What's in front of you today? And I'd go to meetings. If I needed to throw up, I'd close the window, throw up, come back. (Laughs) Like, nobody would know. I just carried on. I'd have surgeries. There was a point, the doctor walked in and said… I was severely septic. And she said, “Taban, you might wake up in ICU. I'm just warning you, just in case, you know, we don't want you to be shocked or scared when you do wake up.” And I looked at her and went, “What are you talking about? I've got a really important donor meeting in the morning. I've got to get to that.” Even my work in that traumatic phase, it gave me something to do daily, and something to look forward to daily.
So, now, what's the hurry? I guess I know how fragile life is. It can be taken away in an instant. You know, I was very lucky to escape deaths three times in that illness, and many times in my lifetime. But I'm very aware of how precious life is now. I'm just so glad that I stepped outside my comfort zone. I always think, if I didn't step out of my comfort zone, none of this would've happened.
Charles:
No, I think most people would listen to your story and go, I wouldn't have survived that. I just wouldn't have survived. And you have done so much more than survive. I mean I think that's part of the remarkable thing about you, is that you haven't just survived. You've, despite everything, you are somehow able to look at the world with hope and possibility. So I think part of, for me, part of the journey of self-discovery is understanding how people like you are able to rise above stuff that would pretty sure would've ended me. It's quite something to be exposed to.
Taban Shoresh:
I don't see any other option. I think that's what it is. Like, my brain just has completely wiped out any other option. Because all the other options are too traumatic. And, I mean, my mom's my rock for me. She's also my superpower. My mom, I would say, is equally fearless, if not more fearless than my dad. To go through what she did, with two young children. I mean, what I'm describing is my mom was younger than me now, with two children, going through all of that. When she was being interrogated, she stood up and spat in the soldier's face and said, “Aren't you ashamed of yourself for taking a 4-year-old?” It's that fearlessness. But then I do think, maybe it is genetics with Kurds. We've got so many years of persecution, generations of persecution in us that resilient is in our blood. It's just waking that resilience up.
It doesn't really exist with everyone around me. And I have to remind myself, not everyone's at your pace Taban. Stop. They can't handle that. You can't–that's something that I have to actively remind myself. And maybe I do need to learn to kind of slow down, my resilience and my physical body aren't really aligned. Because my physical body, there's limits on my physical body with my disability and what I can and can't do. But my resilience is like, no, we're going. So finding a life, and you know, the successful life is, finding a manageable life that will allow me to live healthy but still be as resilient in an easier way. But still be as impactful, but not as hard on my own body, I guess, if that's even possible.
Charles:
I can't tell you… I'm sure you've heard this before, but your story is just so remarkable on so many levels. And I think what you have dealt with, what you have gone through is unimaginable. And the way that you have approached it, the humanity that you've invested in it, the self-awareness, the self-determination, the personal evolution. I mean, there is so much, I think for so many of us to learn from what you've gone through. And I can't thank you enough for sharing it and I can't thank you enough for the work that you're doing to try and help others who are dealing with situations that, certainly speaking for myself, I cannot imagine what it means to go through those experiences. So I want to thank you for coming on the show and for sharing so willingly and openly, and for the work that you're doing.
Taban Shoresh:
Thank you so much for having me and allowing me to share my story.
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