About Leena Magdi
Born in Sudan, raised in California, and now living in Egypt, Leena Magdi writes about grief, love, and healing with disarming honesty. After losing her 21-year-old brother in August 2022, Leena turned to the page as her only safe place to feel. Her debut book, Mourning Air, published in April 2025, blends poetry, prose, and narrative to trace the non-linear terrain of loss; shock, acceptance, anger, guilt, longing, and the slow work of integration.
Grounded in her master’s studies in positive psychology and a bicultural life between Sudan and the United States, Leena explores how grief can “break us open,” expanding our capacity for compassion, faith, and growth. She advocates for conversations around underrecognized grief, especially sibling grief, and for welcoming emotion rather than resisting it.
About this Episode
In this deeply moving episode of The Matrix Green Pill Podcast, host Hilmarie Hutchison sits down with author and poet Leena Magdi to explore the many layers of grief, identity, resilience, and healing. Leena shares the story of losing her younger brother Hamoodi following the 2021 military coup in Sudan, a loss that shattered her world and ultimately reshaped her life.
The conversation moves gently through Leena’s lived experience: the cultural contrasts of growing up between Sudan and California, the shock and sudden acceptance that carried her through the immediate aftermath, and the quiet ways she hid her grief to protect her family. She talks about how writing became her only outlet when her mind felt too heavy to meditate or process emotion, and how her book emerged from a need to make sense of the overwhelming weight inside her.
Leena reflects on the many “faces” of grief, shock, guilt, denial, longing, anger, and the strange moments of recognition when she still thinks she sees her brother. She explains why grief doesn’t get easier, why it isn’t meant to, and how being “broken open” can expand a person’s ability to grow, love, and understand themselves.
She also discusses the cultural silence around sibling grief, the hierarchy of who is “allowed” to grieve, and why she felt compelled to share her story so others wouldn’t have to navigate their loss in isolation. From prayer and poetry to carrying forward her brother’s kindness and generosity, Leena offers a vulnerable and profound look at rebuilding a life after unimaginable loss.
Quotes
2:29 - There's a lot of tolerance there in the culture. The culture is a very tolerant type of culture. And in Sudan, your differences are kind of pointed out.
2:59 - The lives of people are different. The way people think is different, the priorities are different. Even the way people approach well-being, what's important in life, is very different.
3:55 - Just as how there's so many differences, there's also shared similarities and shared values.
6:38 - It really was a gift from God because there was no other way I would have been able to function mentally, emotionally, and physically if I didn't have that innate feeling of acceptance.
9:52 - I don't think the grief itself is a negative thing. I think it's something that should be welcomed as a part of your life.
13:33 - I realized that if this is helping me so much and grief is so universal, it's gotta relate to other people.
18:50 - It can't get easier, but you just learn different ways to keep going in life and to keep them with you.
20:35 - Open yourself to the whole feeling and then see how you can grow through that. As painful as that thought and that concept is to grow through your gr
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