Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye
Dr. Sabrina N’Diaye began her career as a Social Worker in the New York City foster care system, where she served as a therapist in a residential treatment/educational facility. Over the years, she has served underserved populations in public schools, community mental health, and addictions programs.
She is currently an integrative psychotherapist and founder of the Heart Nest Center for Peace and Healing in Baltimore, Maryland. There, she lovingly serves women, couples, other healers, and small groups. Her approach to healing is a blend of wisdom, science, and ancient spiritual practices.
She is a proud senior faculty member of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, where she teaches the art of self- care to healthcare professionals around the globe. As Center faculty, she has responded to community-wide trauma, mass shootings and natural disasters. She has served the Center as a teacher and guide for Muslim community leaders in East Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
In 2012, she became a student of Sidi Muhammad al-Jamal, a healer and peacebuilder from Jerusalem. Sabrina has committed her life to continuing the sacred Sufi teachings of peace, love, justice, mercy, and freedom.
She is currently completing her first book, The Laugh of Love, based on her maternal grandmother’s ability to transcend multiple traumas and chronic illness.
Dr. Sabrina is a devoted wife, mother, daughter, and life-long learner, who remains humbled by the healing power of compassion, love and forgiveness.
The Medicine
Sabrina N'Diaye, PhD, LCSW-C, MDiv
La illahah ill Allah
Cracks my heart wide open.
Without the aid of needles, pills,
or knives.
La illahah ill Allah
No cell goes untouched.
La illahah ill Allah
100 sips carry the oxygen to the bottom of my lungs.
Sorrow lifts.
I can breathe.
La illahah ill Allah
1,000 make me higher than any substance could ever carry me.
5,000 take me away, to the place where The One is my breath.
La illahah ill Allah
The worship of titles, wealth, and the myriad of acronyms after my name
is swept away with each exhalation.
La illahah ill Allah
I am only attached to what pleases the Divine
La illahah ill Allah!
Blocks the immunity invaders of competition, separation, self-contempt, and arrogance.
Decimates the Pharoah that lives in me.
Transforms every offense into opportunity.
Raises my station.
La illahah ill Allah!
Some days, I slurp it.
On others, I must gulp.
La illahah ill Allah!
I walk with it, nestled in the canteen of my tasbih, that only a few choose to see.
The path is slippery, slick, muddy, and unpredictable.
Yet also expansive, ever-changing,
and wide open.
La illahah ill Allah!
I resist the temptation to lie down in the middle of the road
between fear and loathing,
hopelessly melting in the tar, gravel and dirt…
My eyes widen when the Whisperer tells me that I am done.
I turn and call him a liar.
La illahah ill Allah
Grinding my teeth to the shariah,
I spit the pebbles of his falsehood out of the bloody mess of my moment,
and I stand.
La illahah ill Allah!
With firmly planted feet,
Once again, becoming the relentless dandelion that grows from cracked concrete.
La illahah ill Allah!
Our love completes me,
Even on the days when it breaks me.
La illahah ill Allah!
It guides me,
From the false notion of losing you.
It nourishes me,
While my neurons ceaselessly crave, “More.”
La illahah ill Allah!
The rancid taste of oppression that lived in the back of my throat.
Has been flooded with the sweetness of the only Love
That resurrects my dignity.
La illahah ill Allah!
I offer a morsel to all who came before me,
A sea of Black, Brown, and White faces…
The little girl inside me devours it with her tiny right hand,
unencumbered by the fears of the grown-ups who surround her,
and their mindless attempts to block her consumption.
La illahah ill Allah
Her DNA knew those words before her name.
They taste like home.
La illahah ill Allah!
My adult children still sit outside the door,
only accepting the offering of a taste when they are afraid.
I drink more deeply when they go astray.
The well is never dry.
La illahah ill Allah!
Help me consume my Guide’s teachings…
especially the parts that feel indigestible
La illahah ill Allah!
I toss my head back, soaking in the
merciful waterfall of loving guidance that flows from You to me,
and out to the countless dehydrated souls who seek You.
La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah. La illahah ill Allah.
The holy pill…the only pill…
the medicine
that heals.