About Me

Hi, I’m Mohamad Tabbaa, founder of Elemental Trauma Healing.

Elemental was born from my childhood rage.

I had so much unexplainable anger as a child, and I didn’t know what to do with it. I would experience constant fits of rage and lash out at the people around me, hurting them and then feeling terrible about it. At 14 I decided I was no longer going to act on this rage, and decided to supress it, thinking I had resolved it. I would spend the next many years paying for this decision, completely disconnecting from my emotions, remaining trapped in my mind and suffering a host of physical injuries.

My parents tried to help. They would take me to the hospital and tell them there’s something wrong with our child, why is he so angry and violent? The doctors would assess my body and give me a big tick – I was always very athletic and healthy, and then they would assess my mind, and give me an even bigger tick – I was gifted intellectually.

But I was in so much pain. My body was tense. I had severe digestion issues. I had constant headaches. I was excreting blood. I was always injured. I was scared. I was insecure. And I was extremely confused.

After spending more than 25 years in and out of the medical system – from emergency hospitals to specialists to a whole range of therapists – and not getting any better, I took charge of my own healing journey. 

I enrolled in uni and began studying speech, truth and violence, in order to understand what was happening to me and why I kept getting stuck in vicious cycles of violence and addictions.

Why was I magnetised to violence and self-destruction even though I knew it was wrong? Why was I addicted to gambling when everything in my life seemed to be going well for me?

I learned about modern societies and modern violence and traumas: genocides, holocausts and mass killings. I began to understand the human condition and the ingredients that turn normal, law-abiding citizens into deranged killers, and everyday people into addicts. I learned how ancestral and individual traumas teach humans to self-hate and become self-destructive, taking down the people around them along the way; usually the people they love the most.

I then began exploring ancient philosophies of medicine and healing, and contrasting these with modern understandings.

From the Ancient Greeks, I learned about philosophy as a way of life that brings us into harmony with the world around us, and makes us the best version of ourselves.

From the Medieval Mystics I learned about the reflective nature of reality; how our external world reflects our internal world, and how the secret to a better life is changing from within.

I integrated these knowledges and traditions into my academic research project and deepened my understanding of my journey to date.

But it was after a number of serious breakdowns, including a 6-hour anxiety attack, that I really started implementing this knowledge on myself. My healing journey had begun in earnest. I would test everything I had learned on myself and measure the effect, then refine my practice, and repeat again and again and again, each time incorporating new knowledge and experiences, and noting the patterns and results along the way.

I didn’t hold back. I spent over a decade stubbornly committing to this practice.

I tried psychoanalysis and psychology, inner child healing and journaling, hippie dancing and psychedelics, meditations and breathwork, reiki energy healing, spiritual chanting, prayer, whatever I could get my hands on …. I was going to heal no matter what it took.

Then I had my breakthrough. My world completely collapsed, I had my 5th major surgery and was home-bound for 8 months. I spent that entire time doing full-time healing, first thing in the morning till last thing at night. It was intense and terrifying, but it worked. I unlayered my Self down to the very base of my identity, and what I found there was a deep Self-hatred that was causing me to sabotage my life, my relationships, my work, everything that I valued. My lack of Self-worth had driven me to destroy everything in my life that I felt unworthy of.

I removed the hatred and replaced it with Self-love. My journey out of darkness and into light had begun.

I returned to my PhD thesis and transformed it from a commentary on societal violence, to a deep reflection on the nature of the Self, and how the internal condition of the Self, individually and collectively, is manifested in the external world. When we hate on the inside, it shows on the outside. And when we love on the inside, it also shows on the outside.

 It was now time to show the world my findings and to develop a model for healing and Self-transformation that cuts through all the scientific jargon and limiting beliefs about trauma and healing that I had encountered on my own journey.

 I suffered through my healing, often feeling lost, scared, confused and wondering if I would come out the other end in one piece. Even as a scholar, I found many resources confusing and many approaches out of touch. Some were outright harmful. But I came out the other end, and was now dedicated to guiding people through their healing journeys in safety, security, love and connection.

 I spent a lifetime suffering and searching for meaning and healing, learning about different methods and testing what works and what doesn’t.

 I committed to developing Elemental so that nobody else had to do the same.

 I set myself the task of creating a trauma healing model that incorporates all the complexity of the philosophies and spiritual insights I had gained, but in a manner that’s still accessible to everybody. Because trauma is universal, and healing should be too. You shouldn’t need to be a scholar in order to understand trauma, and you shouldn’t need to be a scientist in order to heal.

 I spent many years fighting with my whiteboard. It was truly the ramblings of a madman, but I knew it would come together in the end, even if nobody around me could see it. I worked through internal and external criticism and doubt, I walked away many times, but I knew this was my calling, and I always returned.

And I was right.

 My model finally came together in a consistent way, everything aligned and worked, and I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I still had one problem: it was still too complex to present publicly.

 It was at that point that I was introduced to the ancient model of the Four Elements (or Temperaments), which was widely shared by many ancient and medieval philosophies and traditions, and it presented as an ideal framework that would allow me to bring the many different teachings I had learned under one umbrella method.

 That’s when Elemental was born.