The energetic healer and guide finds joy in Ibiza's abundant natural surroundings

Fouad Sabet is a healer and mentor who specialises in energy medicine, breathwork, coaching and holistic nutrition. Sabet was raised in a close-knit political family in Cairo, Egypt and is an alumnus of the city&rsquo;s American University. In his former corporate career, Sabet lived in Paris, Madrid, Dubai, London and Barcelona. Following a spiritual awakening in 2016, Sabet found himself in Brazil and then in Peru on a path that would take him from multinational sales executive to plant medicine facilitator and guide. He moved to Ibiza in 2020 and lives in <a href="https://preview.lofficielibiza.com/design/iconic-catalan-architect-josep-lluis-sert-and-his-mid-century-ibiza-enclave">Can Pep Sim&oacute;</a>, near Cap Martinet.&nbsp;

&lsquo;I&rsquo;m quite a late riser, so maybe I open my eyes at between eight thirty and nine am. The first thing I do is close my eyes for ten minutes and focus on how I'm feeling. I do a small visualisation meditation and a mental gratitude list. Growing up in Cairo was quite tough for me for many reasons and it&rsquo;s important for me to keep reconnecting with what I&rsquo;m grateful for in my life. I&rsquo;m not a coffee person, so perhaps I&rsquo;ll make some lemon and ginger tea, or something else that aids digestion, and then just move my body for a bit and wake up my energy. I&rsquo;ll then work out for maybe an hour before cooking a high protein breakfast like an omelette with some mushrooms, leeks and avocado. Food is really important to me and some of my fondest memories of childhood are of Friday night feasts at my grandparents&rsquo; house. They had the same chef for thirty years &ndash; he was with them since my father was a baby and he was like family member &ndash; and each Friday we would all gather and he would serve rice, meats, vegetables dishes and these amazing deep fried potatoes that are very traditional in Egypt. I have a very reverent relationship with food and nutrition in general.&nbsp;

I have a small office space, so after breakfast I&rsquo;ll go there and connect with clients or with my network. Sometimes people are struggling and just reaching out to them can be very beneficial. I struggled a lot with depression in the past and I know how impossible it can seem to break that cycle. I was raised in a family with very traditional values and my young years in Cairo were challenging. I struggled to fit in at school and always felt I was different. I wasn&rsquo;t able to be open about my sexuality and even though my family are very close I still felt isolated. I was bullied a lot. I had some extremely tough times but it&rsquo;s these difficulties that make me able to empathise with my clients and what they are going through. It&rsquo;s all part of the journey back to self. After that I might speak with other facilitators and healers to see if I can collaborate with them, or perhaps teach at their retreats. Healing and medicine are gifts that I&rsquo;ve been given, and those gifts only work if I share them. At lunch time I&rsquo;ll take a break and I might walk down to eat at the <a href="https://preview.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/the-inside-track-taryn-ross">Fish Shack</a>, which is really close to my house. It&rsquo;s one of my favourite places on the island and so friendly. If I&rsquo;m out and about I often stop at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/picadelibiza/?hl=en">Picadeli</a> in Santa Gertrudis. The food is quite Middle Eastern inspired and they do the best homemade baba ghanoush and humous on the island.&nbsp;

In the evenings I&rsquo;ll be either teaching or facilitating a ceremony, so my afternoons are taken up with preparing for that. If it&rsquo;s a one-to-one session &ndash; perhaps breathwork or kambo or energy healing - then I&rsquo;ll be having a deep conversation with that client about their needs and desires and also their limitations. Forming a strong bond is the most important part of the process because the client needs to feel safe with me when we go deeper into our journey. My home is also my workspace and I am very particular about the way it looks and feels. I believe that energy moves better in a clear and uncluttered space, but that it must also feel gentle and grounding. Before a client arrives, I&rsquo;ll arrange the rugs and cushions and light a lot of <a href="https://preview.lofficielibiza.com/ibiza/rural-ritual-the-women-honouring-ibiza-s-herbs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">incense</a>. I like to burn black copal resin from Peru and frankincense from Egypt. They both have very powerful cleansing qualities. I will arrange some crystals depending on what we are working on and light candles. I have a big terrace with beautiful sea views, so that&rsquo;s where a lot of my sessions take place. It doesn&rsquo;t matter what the medicine is, I am simply the facilitator of that person&rsquo;s journey and it&rsquo;s up to me to harness and channel the energy they create and to hold the space. Holding space is such an underestimated art. Often, the person will have a breakthrough of some sort and that&rsquo;s when I need to make sure they feel held and seen and that they are aware of what is happening. It&rsquo;s crucial that the experience is integrated properly into daily life and doesn&rsquo;t get discarded or forgotten. If I&rsquo;m facilitating at someone else&rsquo;s retreat, then there is generally a yoga deck or platform or some such spiritual space. Often there&rsquo;ll be a fire. I love to work in nature; for me, that&rsquo;s a very deep healing element and I like to incorporate music, maybe some downtempo electronic music or some tribal sounds. Sometimes I will invite a sound healer to share the space with me.&nbsp;

I like to swim in the evenings. I&rsquo;m a sea person and feel totally at peace with my soul in the water. When I was a child, my grandparents had a summer house in Ismailia near the Suez Canal and I have very strong memories of my father dipping me in the water when I was 5 or 6 as we watched the ships sail past. In Ibiza I love the beach at <a href="cala%20bonita%20ibiza" target="_blank" rel="noopener">S&rsquo;Estanyol</a>, which is close to my house. I swim there often and come away feeling totally purified and cleansed. A lot of people like to stay on the beach for sunset, but it&rsquo;s my favourite time to be at home because the sunset views from my terrace are unbelievable. I might have some friends over. I don&rsquo;t drink alcohol but maybe they&rsquo;ll have some wine or tea, and we will just lie back and chat. Connecting with people on a profound level has been the absolute joy of moving to Ibiza. I spent so much of my life feeling like I was on the outside looking in, unable to connect in a meaningful way. It wasn&rsquo;t until I discovered meditation and plant medicines around eight years ago that I realised I just need to be still and stop chasing connection. To trust that it would come to me. As soon as I made the decision to move here &ndash; right when the pandemic began &ndash; I realised that the island was communicating with me in a different language to anything I&rsquo;d heard before. It was resonating with my frequency and my energy, and that was a totally transformative feeling.

I tend to end my day in a very calm place as long as I&rsquo;ve eaten well, I&rsquo;ve worked out, I&rsquo;ve been in nature and been of service to my community. If I still have some energy I might put on some music and dance for a while. I know that sounds cheesy but it&rsquo;s an incredible form of release. I generally go to bed around eleven, with some healing frequencies playing on my computer. I feel calm and content. Sometimes I think about my family and my life in Egypt. Through healing myself, I&rsquo;ve also healed my relationship with my country. I feel much more connected to my ancestry and proud of the deep roots I have in my native culture. I feel that I have built a new relationship with the energy of my country and now I crave it and miss it. I perceive Egypt in a very different way. Not as a place that I had to run away from, but as a place of deep-rooted wisdom and creativity and welcoming and love. I have totally disconnected from all the negativity and the trauma that I experienced. With the <a href="https://www.fouadsabet.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retreat programme</a> that I have created in Egypt this year, I feel that I have come full circle.&rsquo;

A Day in the Ibiza Life: Fouad Sabet

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