About Me

I was born and raised in Tehran, experiencing the Iranian Revolution of 1979 firsthand. The darkness of dictatorship has been shadowing my life and millions of others for decades. In 2004 I immigrated to the United States. I got a job, went to graduate school, and learned about the English language and American culture. The "pursuit of happiness" was well advertised. I didn't understand what it was. I wasn't able to be happy. My life was too busy with the complex challenges of being a new immigrant, going to school, dealing with the long process of my daughter's immigration visa, getting a divorce, and working many hours at my corporate job. There was little room for happiness.

It took a few years to get all my ducks in a row. My daughter's visa was issued, and we were reunited in the US. I had started a beautiful romantic relationship, finished graduate school, and changed my job to a different corporate with 15% raise. Everything looked great, except I felt a void in my heart and the heaviness of a cloud of confusion above my head. Where did I belong? Was I broken? Or a defect? What was wrong with me?

I had achieved the American Dream, but I still wasn't happy. I needed a deeper connection with life. I began questioning the traditional version of the American Dream.

I noticed memories of the past three decades haunted me, distracting me from the present. I wanted to make sense of my history and its relationship with the present moment. I felt sad, scared, guilty, and dissatisfied most of the time. There were so many powerful triggers in any environment I walked in. Something needed to change: the unprocessed traumas of my past. I had become a victim of my bitter experiences.

While still busy with my corporate job as a program analyst working on government contracts within the aerospace industry, I began writing about the story of my life. Slowly but surely. I needed to understand the past.

The writing journey brought beautiful connections to my life and created deep, lifelong friendships. One important one was with my writing coach. Her in-depth questions, encouragement, and support made it possible for me to begin the process of healing my traumas.

Writing and publishing my book, My Persian Paradox, have taught me how I could connect with strangers by reading my story to them and feeling connected to them. Sharing our universal human challenges and hopes creates compassion and brings the hearts closer to each other. It helps for a more profound understanding of each other, allowing space for opening up and discussing our secrets.

All those lessons inspired me to become a life coach and get an education on the concept of human development and human behavior. My passion for the psychology of human development led me to learn about the Integral Theory offered by the great thinker Ken Wilber and Martin Heidegger. I chose a coaching school that educated me as an Integral Life Coach.

As an integral life coach, I learned to embody new practices that help me grow deeper and unfold my potential. My coaching teachers enabled me to experience the state of art techniques that allow me to recognize and process traumas, boost my connection and appreciation to life, and regulate my emotions and behavior. I have grown a deep love for life coaching. By sharing my experience and creating meaningful relationships, I continue growing with each of my clients.

I now understand that the best interpretation of the "pursuit of happiness" is that everyone deserves to be happy, but it is our job to bring happiness to our lives. Not only that, I realized being always happy is not the primary life goal and not even possible. We need to accept and appreciate our emotions, pleasant and unpleasant. With the challenges that life throws at us, creating meaningful connections through love and wisdom, becoming more resilient, actualizing our potential, and feeling fulfilled are the pillars of a well-lived life.