Healing process

It starts with that ache inside, feeling low and struggling to keep up with your daily chores. you feel something isn’t going the right way or something is happening to you. Your body and mind are out of sync. Your body is saying something and your mind has its own way.

To bring the mind and the body together in harmony is what healing means to me.

As I have shared why I started having mental illness in the first place in my previous post. That time and environment did something to me that changed the whole chemistry of my body and mind.

While being in the college I took many women studies classes but I couldn’t personally relate myself to those characters. I thought many were brave to overcome their fears and challenges. I wanted to be that women for some reason, I wanted to be the savior and the activist that advocate. People like Malala, Nawaz, I tutuba and Virginia wolf fascinated me. I remember a class with Jennifer browdy, we were talking about virgin wolf she was a very successful writer but her life was nowhere to what we imagine it to be. She never got out of the house she locked her self inside and was all alone in her big house.

Her books had women characters that had ended their lives in a tragic way and they had some sort of episode before they died. So we were talking about why women? Why women go through this mental instability more than men? It just stuck with me. Why women?

But I didn’t associate myself with any of those women while reading about them, I was just so fascinated with the kind of lives women have lived and are living. ” I have never met a woman who isn’t strong.”

In Bhutan, I was shy and basically a mute most of my life. Women were supposed to gentle, feminine and reserved. The iptomy of purity was the definition of women. If your character and words or manners were not accordingly your purity is tainted for life. I cannot blame anyone it’s a small place with people from different diaspora and culturally diverse.

I am very lucky to grow up in a family that is so liberal and free thinkers. Even in a small town like Damphu, I was privileged to grow up with my parents who were well educated and good natured people. My neighbors were like my family we would go to their houses if there was any festivals or some events.

I grew up with a tomboyish attitude. I use to play football, go fishing, use to wear knee-length shorts and t-shirt all summer, and play wrestling with my brothers.

In Bhutan, there is no concept of gender in society. It’s a matriarch society and women are powerful in their own household.

But with the western influence on lifestyle and our outlook, women rights had gained popularity in Bhutan.

If we are adopting the language English as a primary medium for communication than we have to accept the culture it brings with it. A western culture based on the capitalist outlook and individualist nature contrast to our community-based outlook. I feel that east is trying to adapt the west in that process there is bound to be some sort of conflict or some serious consequences.

Coming back to healing I feel the whole community needs some serious healing to do. Create policies that help regulate a safe and secure community in a very effective manner as much as possible. It’s possible for a country like Bhutan the population is less and with more youth. If youth are involved in the decision making of the policies maybe they won’t feel so left out of the community.

”Trauma passed down as culture.”

I have heard this while listing to a guy speaking on youtube. I really thought what does that mean? Because Bhutan emphasizes so much on preserving culture and traditions. It just occurred to me that some of the things that are passed down from generations as a culture are just an old out of date believe systems. It’s not relevant in this era where people are rapidly growing and adjusting and adapting newer environment and culture. For example; in schools, we are taught from a really young age to obey our teacher and respect our elders. The younger generation should be taught to respect people not only elders and also respect people only when they deserve respect. I learned this hard way.

Now suddenly the expectations of the people are changing, they want youth to be more vocal and engage in different community activities. It’s very hard to adjust to a new way of life when one is conditioned to follow a certain belief system. My whole life as a student in Bhutan, to be quiet and listen to your teachers.

So when I came to the west it was the opposite. I had to somehow be like an American loud, opinionated and vocal.

That’s when one gets confused with the intermingling of different cultures and society. Some people adopt some don’t that’s why we need to be kinder than before because people are not only displaced physically but also emotionally. Especially when people migrate from thousands of miles.

It takes a lifetime to heal from this unwanted confusion created by our society and system.

Human beings are a social animal and we all need kindness and acceptance from each other. It’s our innate nature and we are born with it.

And human beings deserve healing. We need to heal our traumas, mental illness, and unjust system. Healing is such a painful process because it takes time and its a lonely journey. And again our health care professionals need to be involved, we need support from our family and also help from the community. So there is no stigma and judgment from people regarding mental illness because it can happen to anyone. We are all human and we sometimes hit the lows. And I have learned that it’s not our fault and no can be blamed for our feelings. We need to do better and follow a wholesome habit which helps our emotional and physical health.

Healing feels like a transformation it does it feels like I am morphing into a being unknown to me. It’s a scary feeling yet exciting. I have become more aware of my thought process and my presence. I spent a lot of alone time because I just need a lot of space sometimes. I need to focus on my wellbeing because that’s all I got at the end. You cannot pour from an empty cup and I am trying to harness that energy so that I can be an agency of change for our community. I still have a lot of unlearning and learning to do. I am learning to be a daughter, to be a friend and just exist as a human being. It feels like rebirth and feels like I have just exited from the womb.

To keep myself grounded I do meditation in the morning for 10–20 mins and do my morning prayers. I have little wooden Buddha given to me by my sensei that I pray to.