DON'T FEEL!
When I was 11, my grandmother passed away. With her gone and my sister at boarding school in Los Angeles, I was very lonely. I locked myself in my room and cried and cried. My mom couldn't bear to see me crying all the time. Thinking it would be best for me to leave Iran so I wouldn't be constantly reminded of my grandmother, she sent me to Los Angeles to attend Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls boarding school, with my sister.
Whatever my mom's reasoning, I learned a hard lesson that day: it wasn’t acceptable to feel my grief. Rather than process it, I needed to distract myself from those sad emotions.
That moment set a precedent: moving and changing my environment became my way of dealing with challenges.
Depression and a daughter
But moving to Los Angeles didn't change anything. At age 16, I had depression. Of course, I didn't realize then what it was that had hit me. I just felt a deep sense of loneliness and grief. I remember lying in bed at boarding school feeling like my heart was going to explode.
My 20s were a blur. I moved about 40 times, not realizing that moving was my way of running from my feelings, and that it wasn't working.
Then, at 32, my daughter was born. She changed everything.
I wanted to be the best mother I could be, and I realized that meant improving my mental state. I tried a lot of different things: books, workshops, life coaching, yoga.
After years of learning, experimenting, and practicing, something finally clicked: I realized that trauma is not only in the mind, but imprinted physically in our cells. In other words, “our issues are in our tissues”.
Breathwork and the journey to feeling my emotions
At 49, I got a divorce. My feelings were a mess: peace, pain, sadness, relief. I still didn’t know how to process my emotions. Instead, I spent hours, days, and even weeks ruminating on them, trying to make some sense of what I was feeling. I tried to make myself feel better by blaming others and fixing other people's problems. None of it helped.
Once again, society told me that it wasn't acceptable to feel my own feelings. My friends made comments like: “It’s not good to feel this way." and "You need to get out of this funk.” While I know they meant well, the message was clear to me: I had to quickly get rid of my unpleasant feelings, rather than process them.
Three years later, my daughter came back from college with severe depression. I wanted to be there for her, but my own depression spiraled, and I was sometimes suicidal. My own mother tried to be supportive, and although I loved her, her actions were constantly triggering me. I couldn’t help but react angrily, which filled me with immense guilt.
I'm not going to sugarcoat it: this was by far the worst time of my life. But something good came out of it: it led me to TRANSFORMATIONAL BREATH, BIOENERGETICS, and MOVEMENT THERAPIES that RELEASED TRAUMA PHYSICALLY. For the first time in my life, I made progress toward becoming the person I wanted to be.
Transformational Breath allowed me to peel away so many layers of unprocessed emotions, especially the abandonment I felt when my grandmother passed and I was sent away to boarding school.
The difference between all the talk therapy, books, workshops, and breathwork was that breathwork moved unprocessed emotions from a cellular level. Breathwork helped my entire body remember how it felt to lose my grandmother. And that allowed me to finally process it.
I no longer needed to TRY to change; I was changing naturally, almost without realizing it. My mind felt spacious and peaceful. I could be present with others and enjoy the simple things in life. For the first time, I started being kind toward myself, and, even more importantly, toward my mother. ALL MY RELATIONSHIPS STARTED SHIFTING, and some I just let go of. I started loving my daughter unconditionally--and I truly mean unconditionally--even when she didn't do what I thought was best for her, I could support her.
Through long years of trial and error, I discovered what works and what doesn't. I now combine all the modalities that brought me success to create breakthroughs for my clients--so you can move, as I did, from depression and anxiety to freedom and true joy.
MY LEARNINGS INCLUDE:
- Deep Tissue, Fascia Release, Sports Massage Certified since 1985
- Masters in Exercise Physiology 1987
- Yoga Therapy Certified with 7 master teachers since 1995
- Pranayama/yogic breathwork training with Roger Cole 1995
- Ayurvedic Massage Certified since 1996 from Chopra Center
- Transidental Meditation at Chopra Center 1996
- Pilates Certified since 2002
- Life Coach Certified by Debbie Ford at JFK University 2008
- Flexibility Trainer Navy SEALS in San Diego 2013/2014
- Transformational Breath Facilitator/Trainer 2015
- Trauma Release Exercises 2017
- Sound Healing Certifications 2018
- Master Practitioner Neuro-Linguistic Programming 2022
- Master Practitioner of Mental Emotional Release 2022
- Master Practitioner of Hypnotherapy 2022
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