Authentic Heart & Soul with Akanke Rasheed

Zaimah Habeeb joins me to discuss her love for learning and teaching Arabic, reciting the Holy Qur'an, and producing conscious music for popular culture. She shares how she has worked through feeling divided between her all of these and about reconciling the conflicting feelings she has felt in the past which made her feel she couldn't recite the Quran and sing music. She wants to use her God-given talent to inspire others to know and remember God and as an independent vocal artist, singer, and songwriter she wants to bring God-consciousness to popular culture. She has produced four albums and is now working on her 5th album, which says will be for the world. 

Sprinkled throughout this episode are samples of Zaimah's beautiful Quranic recitation as well as songs from her albums. Zaimah is such a delightful person. It is so easy to love her because she truly embodies an authentic heart and soul. I really enjoyed our conversation and I hope you will enjoy listening.

Hajja Ayisha Jeffries Cisse is a dynamic leader, global servant, and beautiful woman. She is a scholar, humanitarian philanthropist, social entrepreneur, activist, and holistic lover of God and life.  She has worked as the Vice President of Global Affairs and Senior Policy Advisor on Gender Equity to the President of the African American Islamic Institute (AAII), a non-governmental international organization based in Senegal, West Africa. Their mission was to lead sustainable development to promote education, health care, the empowerment of women and children, the alleviation of poverty, and the promotion of peace. Joining AAII as a Resource Strategist, Ms. Jeffries developed numerous multi-lateral partnerships from global organizations to grassroots community initiatives. These included the United Nations, AmeriCares, US Doctors for Africa, and Wassukafo (community advocates for the eradication of Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting in the Gambia). These and over thirty-five other ongoing partnerships have resulted in half a billion dollars in resources and sustained change in the quality of life for the people of West Africa. In her current position, Ms. Jeffries develops strategic policies and strategies that foster enhanced relationships between the Islamic World and the West with an emphasis on gender equity within faith communities. She has co-developed over twenty conferences centering on women’s rights in Islam, health, education, and economic development and serves as the Alternate Representative to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at the United Nations. Independent of AAII, Ms. Jeffries is a high-level Community Engagement Partner in Atlanta, Georgia where she works with local leaders on concerns of integrity,  accountability, and service grounded in her passion for bringing needed resources to underserved communities.  

Maghboeba is an immigrant from Capetown, South Africa who learned the value of service as a young girl in the harsh and oppressive apartheid system. Her personal sojourn has meant achieving success beyond the limitations of her upbringing and cultivating a deep desire to serve the disadvantaged and underserved influenced by the work she saw her parents do as a child to help others.  

On this episode, I talk with the wonderful and dynamic Angelica Lindsey-Ali—lovingly known as The Village Auntie™.  She joined me to talk about the spirituality and sacredness of SEX. We talked about body positivity issues that women and surprisingly for men have when it comes to sex and intimacy and about how life is a dance with love...one in which most folks are offbeat, out-of-step, and basically dysfunctional when it comes to understanding True Love and looking for love in all the wrong places.  But, where there is faith and love for God, there is hope.   The future is bright for lovers of The Most Loving!   

Angelica is a certified sexual health educator, researcher, author, curator of woman-centered spiritual intensives, and a recognized authority in intimacy cultivation in Islamic marriage and emotional well-being. She leads a global following of women (and supportive men) who love her practical, heart-centered advice on love, intimacy, and relationships. She offers workshops and resources on cultivating spirituality, maximizing divine feminine attributes, love, intimacy, relationships, traditional approaches to sexuality, and feminine gender identity within the framework of traditional West and East African societies. 

https://www.instagram.com/villageauntie/

Chantal Blake is a Womb Wellness Educator who is passionate about helping women deepen their knowledge and implement wholistic practices to cultivate greater self-love and self-care as it relates to taking care of their feminine nature and their womb.  I met her when I participated in one of her online courses called Deeper Femininity.  Having no biological children of my own, talking about motherhood and childbirth with her intrigued me and filled my heart and soul with warmth and fuzziness. 

Chantal and I talk about the three stages of womanhood and the spiritual, emotional, and intellectual development that happens across those stages; the hidden mysteries of pregnancy including how God causes natural hormones to be produced during childbirth, which leads to an altered state of consciousness to help women endure the pain of giving birth; and how women who do not have an ideal childbirth experience can heal any emotional wounds, release suppressed feelings of regretfulness, and restore their spiritual sovereignty. 

Chantal's knowledge and wisdom is very grounded and go well beyond her youthful age. 

Dr. Davia Shepherd is a real-life superwoman.   Not only is she a best-selling author,  the CHO (Chief Happiness Officer) of a dynamic women's networking organization, a fellow transformational retreat leader, and "The Queen of Collaboration", she is also a wife, mother, and a successful Doctor of Chiropractic Medicine in private practice in a small town in Connecticut. On this episode, we talk about her new book, Grow Smarter, which promotes working smarter not harder through collaborative partnerships. Of course, on "Authentic Heart and Soul" we believe EVERYTHING has a spiritual nature, and collaboration which requires working together with other human beings is definitely—at least in part—a test of our spiritual and emotional intelligence. 

In this powerful conversation, I speak with the dynamic soul, Aishah Tatum, a holistic life and leadership coach.  Aishah earned a degree in Psychology, and MBA and is pursuing her PhD in Interpersonal Psychology.  She holds nothing back in telling us the spiritual truth about why we should  act, eat, speak, and live like we love ourselves. Can you guess the powerful reason she says we should do these things?  Listen to hear her speak the spot-on truth! 

In this episode we talk about the remembrance of God, our covenant with God, how our hearts beat to the name of God, the embodiment of God’s attributes, the unity of God, unified love, and ways to increase our remembrance of God.  Good stuff!  

In this episode, I talk with the delightful soul Tash Mitch about being identified at a young age as an Indigo child and being holistically nurtured by her grandmother to have spiritual awareness which cultivated her self-awareness early in life. We also talk about death, intuition, and managing difficult situations by owning our truth without bypassing uncomfortable feelings.