Honestly, I didn’t know that Shahrukh Khan was playing the role of a coach/ therapist in the movie ‘Dear Zindagi’. In fact, post interval I felt as though I was at work, totally alert and in awe of the Director’s understanding of healing through emotions.
Some light on emotions….
As Emotional therapists, we are taught that the basic need of every human is the need to be heard and Dr. Jehangir was flawless at holding the space in love, honoring the expression of emotions without judgment.
Most people consider emotions either positive or negative; I would like to emphasize that emotions are just energy in motion (e-motion) and as energy, they only seek an outlet. They become negative in nature when the energy is restricted, creating stagnation and making home in the body.
Thanks to our conditioning, where suppression is considered a sign of strength; ‘Inhibiting feeling joy and sorrow‘ can become our status update. Ironically, our ‘Aliveness’ creates embarrassment to the society we live in!
As beautifully illustrated by Dr. Jehangir; “Bachchpan main jab rona aata hai, toh bade bolte hai aasun pocho. Jab gussa aata hai, toh bade kehte hai smile taaki ghar ki shanti bani rahe. nafrat karna chahe, toh ijazat nahi di. And jab pyaar karna chahe, toh pata chala ye saala emotional system hi gadbada gaya, kaam nahi kar raha, cannot function. Rona, gussa, nafrat kuch bhi khul ke express nahi karne diya. Ab pyaar kaise express kare?”
It’s rather sad that people are unaware of the effects of repressed emotions and as a consequence, they create illnesses in the body and stress in relationships. Sudden outburst of anger or outrageous behavior takes people by surprise; however, it’s only natural as the shadow energies begin to take over. A pressure cooker has been steaming at the back burner for a long time now! What else can we expect? Boom!!
So that we don’t reach such extremes, learning to ‘excrete emotional waste’ through healthy mechanisms on an everyday basis is the way forward. Our ability to function as effective humans, capable of realizing our potential and living a life of joy is entirely dependent on our emotional health. Only when we give voice to our expressions, can we feel the gift of love and experience the full blossoming of our beings. Authenticity always works and there is no need to feel ashamed of any of what we feel, be it fear, sadness, anger or guilt, because light is beneath the shadow.
About the movie….
In the movie, Kaira had a great career backed with financial freedom, and also a great set of friends, which equates a perfect recipe for an ideal life! However, her issues revolved around repressed emotions that created problems in her relationship with her partners. As the movie progressed, the audience was educated into understanding that her problems had their roots in her childhood memories. She needed healing! Healing from abandonment and the medicine was forgiveness!
As Kaira was encouraged into releasing her emotions by expressing how she felt as a child, the blocked energies found a way out and she was able to welcome a fresh perspective to her life. Her willingness to forgive her parents and see that they were doing the best with the resources they had at that time, set her free and she could accept them for who they were.
And it doesn’t end there… one has to forgive the self for allowing complete healing to happen; for in the prison of our hearts is trapped the innocent being that had to bear the brunt of not understanding fully the lesson behind the drama of our lives. Healing is about embracing the inner child whom we have left behind in our journeys.
Abandonment’ is the big game behind all misery. I remember, as a child, even I had felt abandoned by my mother and had felt unworthy of being loved, until of course the puzzle was solved and I realized that the key to my freedom was always with me. The way is through self love. All through in our journeys, we have been abandoning ourselves, only to realize that it’s our own love that we are seeking. Once in touch with the treasure within, we can feel the fullness of being alive, as did Kaira!
About Self Love…
Most clients ask me what I mean by self love, and my answer is always simple….unconditional acceptance of self as who you are. It’s the willingness and ability to accept ourselves as perfect, totally worthy of everything we desire. It’s this powerful dosage of love that heals and cures all ailments, both mental and physical; besides healing relationships and self esteem issues too.
I would like to highlight few messages from the movie pointing in the direction of self love…
- There is no need to be so harsh on self, nor is there a need to prove ones’ worthiness to anyone. The consciousness of guilt is too heavy to bear, offload and travel light, let go and move on…forgive yourself!
- Accept the past as bygone. Nobody digs a grave to check that, which has already been decomposed. My teacher once told me that there are no mistakes, only lessons to be learnt. So once again, forgive yourself and be good at it!!
- Accept people as they are. Playing victim only perpetuates the game of guilt and blame; purely a waste of energy. Forgive others, they didn’t mean to harm us.
- Follow the path of least resistance. Life can be effortless and easy. As Dr. Jehangir rightly says, we don’t have to choose the difficult path because we think that’s the way to success, especially if we aren’t ready for it.
- It’s ok to shop a while before we decide what is apt for us. We might have people calling us indecisive and inconsistent, but one isn’t under any obligation to buy into others’ projections of what is right or wrong for us.
- Living in the present is a gift of a lifetime. The past is a story and the future is imagination, none of it is true. One can either be NowHere or NoWhere, the choice is always ours!
As a closing note, I want to thank Gauri Shinde for creating awareness around Emotional wellbeing and enabling people recognize that mental health is as important as physical health. Also, that one can always ask for help from experts because we care and we understand as we too have travelled the path.
Kudos to Alia for she represented a huge section of humanity, suffering from the effects of unresolved emotions and unfinished businesses.
Shahrukh, thanks for playing my purpose so magnificently, I feel like a superhero!!
May we all choose to feel good#Love You Zindagi!
Naz Chougley
P.S. I would like to bring to my readers’ notice that it’s really very important to discharge our emotions before they get bottled up and culminate into shadow energies. However, the discharge must be encouraged in the presence of a trained therapist who provides safety and is skilled at uncovering the real issue.
Join us
This is a conversation aimed at getting you to think about some of the beliefs you hold with regards to various subjects in life. We would be sharing more views in times to come. If you resonate with our blogs, please subscribe to them.
You can mail us for a free consultation at info@aspirise.org or visit our website
