Healing Across Borders: The Story Behind Our Collaboration with EMDR4PEACE

At OK2Feel, everything we create grows out of lived experience, the raw, messy, beautiful work of being human.

As someone who lives with anxiety, chronic pain, and disability, I know what it means to feel broken by the world and still reach toward healing. That’s why our recent collaboration with EMDR4PEACE feels so personal.

EMDR4PEACE is a grassroots organization that brings together Israeli and Palestinian therapists to train side by side in post-trauma care. It’s not about ignoring pain or pretending things are fine—it’s about the quiet, radical work of healing in a region fractured by violence, grief, and fear.

In early 2025, we partnered to translate Parts in Me, one of our therapy card sets, into Arabic and donated 100 decks to Palestinian therapists.

These therapists work under incredibly difficult conditions—some in refugee camps, some in active conflict zones. They support children and families in naming what hurts and beginning to heal, even when the hurt hasn’t stopped. That kind of emotional care is unbelievably brave.

This wasn’t just a translation project. It was an act of resistance. Of radical softness. Of refusing to let politics erase humanity.

Why It Matters to Me

I’ve been part of peace protests since I was young. I’ve always believed empathy is stronger than fear, though that belief hasn’t always protected me.

At one protest, I was in my wheelchair, bringing water to a fellow protester who’d just had a panic attack after being shoved by a passerby. As I leaned in to help, a police officer pushed me out of the way violently. I hit the pavement hard. Not just physically, but emotionally. The message was loud and clear: You don’t belong here. Your body, your voice, your resistance—they’re inconvenient.

But I stayed. Because this work, whether on the streets or in therapy rooms, isn’t about being convenient. It’s about being human. It’s about staying in the room, even when it hurts.

That’s what OK2Feel is about. That’s why we create the tools we do.

What Cards Can Do

These cards aren’t magic. They don’t fix trauma. But they offer something rare in a divided world: a safe, creative space to name parts of yourself. To say, “This is me.” And to be met with, “I see you.”

In Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem, therapists are using these cards to gently open conversations in places where silence often feels safer. And we’re honored, truly honored, to be even a tiny part of that.

War is an endless loop, an open wound of unhealed trauma.

This project reminded me that even when the world feels irreparably broken, there are still small ways to reach across. Still hands to hold. Still healing to be done.

→ If you’d like to support EMDR4PEACE, you can donate directly to their work here: Donate to EMDR4PEACE

→ Curious how our therapy cards support emotional work? Explore the decks here: See the Cards

Let’s keep doing the slow, soft, powerful work of healing—together.