Mental Illness

Understanding BipolarDisorder, depression and other illnesses

Who’s the boss?

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Did you know there’s an organisation that brings science and spirituality together? Its mission is to create a kinder, heart-centered world where we care for one another and live harmoniously. It’s called the HeartMath Institute and offers many free resources.

They have found that the heart is not just a mechanical pump. It contains thousands of nerve cells. That is probably the reason our memories and trauma are stored in various parts of our body, mainly the brain and heart.

We were taught in school that the brain is a master-organ but it’s the heart that tells it what to do. The intelligence of creativity, innovation and intuition resides in the cells of the heart. Brain neurons are the antennae that follow the heart’s desires. For example, I want to speak and understand Spanish says the heart. The brain follows.

We humans have a stunning ability to self-regulate. Our biology is engineered as a soft technology. Our fundamental physiology is made up of ion-potentials across membranes. We’re the only form of life that can harmonise its two major neural organs through Heart-Brain Coherence. We can alter the chemistry in our bodies. Once this coherence occurs, we can heal and be healthy. The immune system is strengthened, longevity enzymes rise and stress is reduced at a molecular level. Three minutes of this shift can produce beneficial effects for 6 hours.

3 steps:

  1. Shift in focus – into the heart
  2. Shift in breath – slow it so the exhalation is longer than the inhalation
  3. Shift in feeling – a positive feeling – initiate Gratitude on demand.

We are powerful self-regulators. It is a God-like ability that we have, to heal ourselves. We’re conditioned to feel helpless and think we need external help. Sometimes we do need interventions, but we can honour the gift of this body to heal ourselves.

Let there be joy, peace and colour!

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Mandalas draw me into their whorls. A casual glance is never enough. My gaze gets fixated on each one and I lose myself in the movement and the stillness in that form. The patterns seem to be spontaneous and well thought through, calm and dynamic, chaotic and yet, organised. The literal meaning of the word is, a sacred circle and it feels like one.

A random advert on YouTube and I was at the local stationery shop buying a geometry box. I needed a compass and a protractor for the Mandala Workshop I had signed up for. I was excited at the prospect of making one but also worried about making a mess of it. My artistic abilities are fairly limited but I am a good doodler. Many a lengthy-phone-call have produced intricate henna-esque patterns on the handiest bit of paper loitering on my table.

The first thing the facilitator said was, today you will draw your Universe. Don’t erase anything. There are no mistakes. You will see, everything has a place, even the so called ‘mistakes’. So, erase nothing. It’s not about producing a beautiful piece of art. It’s about the process. After making the grid, she had us light a candle and guided us through a grounding exercise. Then she played a mellow piano tune and asked us to start from the centre of the circle and work outwards with a black uniball pen. No rules. No meaning. No right. No wrong. No special colours or materials. Just allow whatever wants to appear on the page to appear.

She said this practice can heal us as it opens the heart, takes place in the moment and is non-judgemental. Watch your inner critic coming at you pointing its index finger. Ignore it and carry on. Smile 🙂

Joyland

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Islam forbids suicide. It calls it a grave sin or ‘haraam’. It is viewed as taking away the gifts of life given by God. The Qu’ran says, trust God, have faith in the mercy of God and do not destroy life.

Joyland is a bold film, the first Pakistani feature to be premiered at Cannes in 2022.

It is about being alone in a crowd of expectations, being punished for having secret desires and accidentally making them seen. It is about someone else having to pay the price for our impulsive indiscretions, about how the bucket of shame topples itself on our heads as soon as we allow our innermost wants to be visible. It talks about how others can forcibly live their dreams through us, how our roles in society hold us firmly in one place and make us invisible as individuals, how we don’t have permission to be confused and are not allowed the time and space to think and talk things through, how life can be cluttered and noisy.  It’s about knowing you want to ‘run away’ but not knowing what that means or looks like. It’s about having to figure all this out, all by yourself.

It’s about treasuring moments of joy when they arise.

They could be hidden in the kitchen, on the Ferris wheel or inside the pages of an old book.

Are you listening?

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‘I was sent away to live with my granny when my youngest sister was to be born. I was three and a half then. I stayed with my grandma till I was 6. When I moved back to my family, I wasn’t quite sure who they were. That time of my life shows up as murky grey when I think about it.’

“Well, everyone has gone through something or another.”

“Those days life was hard. There were no washing machines and dish-washers. So, I can understand how hard it must have been to look after three under-fives.”

“At least you were re-united with your family within a few years and you were safe.”

“I am sure your grand-ma cuddled you and loved you very much.”

“At least you were in the care of your grand-mother and not some random stranger. I was brought up by nannies.”

“It clearly did you no harm. Look at you.”

Wow! Not one person sitting around that table listened.

Did they have any curiosity? Any fascination?

Do we allow our listening to connect us with something fragile, deep within us?

Does it forge understanding and connection with another?

Do we allow ourselves to sit with someone else’s shadow?

Does our listening ease a burden?

Am I listening?

Are you really listening?

(Resource: In CORe community, we listen.)

Nights – 3654.

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A hundred and twenty months. Ten years. An outrageous survival.

Each night angry, uncharitable.  Sleep. No sleep. Dreams. No dreams.The death of so many. Dreams.

In my dreams, I plead with you. Please stay, Be’ta.

We’ll find a way. Don’t give up yet. Don’t go away.

Come here. Sit with me.

Tell me what I need to know. Tell me what hurts you so. Tell me how I can make it go.

I could guess when you were hungry, thirsty.

To your amused annoyance, even when you wanted to pee. I just knew. I don’t know how.

But this one I did not see coming.   I couldn’t. I don’t know how.

I am sorry. I had no map. I was lost in the fast lane.

In my dreams, our dark sides are friends.

Together they figure it out, Have a laugh, make it all okay.

In my dreams, we breathe together nice and slow,

As if singing a joyful melody. We hold hands and dance in our kitchen

Crying on each other’s shoulders, secretly.

From the fridge, I pull out a white china bowl

Filled with pomegranate seeds,

Rubies, I harvested earlier in the day. Please stay, my Jaan. I would say.

In my dreams,

through my furious longing

I can momentarily understand.

Your pain, your silence.

I can understand why you had to go.

Like a boat sailing into a new morn,

I must release you.

I must stay.

I must let you be on your way.

In my dreams.



(An ancestor of this poem is Walt Whitman, who said, “We were together. I forget the rest.” )