"Returning to Faith After Trauma" Khutbah by Nurjahan Boulden (11/30/18)

Khateebah Nurjahan Boulden delivers the khutbah for The Women's Mosque of America on November 30, 2018. She moves the congregation with her courageous sharing of the struggles she faced as a shooting survivor. She vividly describes the symptoms and impact of the trauma, along with concrete action steps she took to help her heal 10 years later - when her symptoms took a turn for the worst. Nurjahan shares how we can achieve inner peace and healing by submitting fully to God, how to distinguish between blind vs. true faith, and how we can use true faith to transfrom our fear into action that will help us achieve our dreams. // In the Q&A discussion that follows (see next recording), she explains the two year process of how she went from realizing she needed a different way of dealing with her trauma to mastering her new way of living with peace and freedom.
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Nurjahan Boulden was 21 years old when she was shot with an assault rifle in an attack that killed the man next to her. That one night changed the trajectory of her life. Even as she moved on to become a teacher and mother of three, she continued to suffer in silence with depression, anxiety, and physical complications from the bullet wound. It wasn’t until ten years later that she shared her story publicly for the first time. It was there that she found the community and support she needed in order to finally recover. Having worked in education and in the non-profit sector for most of her career, she is now the world’s leading coach and healer for shooting survivors who are ready to feel safe again. In addition to individual and group coaching, she is a public speaker, hosts support groups and community resilience workshops, and has been featured in a number of publications, including Cosmopolitan and Women’s Health Magazines. Her most recent project is a collaboration of mental health professionals bringing gun violence prevention and recovery programs to schools and organizations across the country.

Nurjahan was born and raised in rural Massachusetts before moving to the West Coast in 2003 to attend Pitzer College in Claremont. With a Tanzanian mother and a White American father, her family was one of only two Muslim families where she grew up. She now enjoys living in a diverse area of Rancho Cucamonga, CA with her husband and three young children.