Remember the last time you cried whole heartedly? Remember the last time you felt angry and could shout? When was the last time you felt so happy about something and laughed out loud? Without thinking where you are, what would people think or is it appropriate?

Soon after birth as you grow you learn many things. Many things are taught to you, many you learn yourselves. You are told what is right what is wrong, what is good and what is bad. Then came a point in your childhood when you stopped growing (naturally) and started being false. You may have been angry, a small child in a tantrum, angry, and your father or your mother said, “Don’t be angry! This is not good!” You were natural but a split, a choice was created for you.

You had an aunt coming over to your place, who you disliked or had no affection for, but your parents dressed you up before the aunt arrived and held a grilling session with you of how you are supposed to behave, what you are supposed to talk and what you dare say!! Finally the aunt arrived and you were in the best of your clothes with the sweetest of smiles flashing on your face and your mother said “Sweetheart, greet your aunt, kiss her!” You kissed her indeed!! But why? Definitely not out of affection or love but just because you were asked to. This is how you first started becoming False…becoming Picture Perfect!!

Have you travelled in a Virar or Kalyan local train (Mumbai Railways) during peak hours? If yes then you will know, how people remove their anger they have on their in-laws on a fellow passenger just because she stepped on her feet by mistake, how people can easily stamp over an old man and rush for a seat as if all the goodness and etiquette maintained in office throughout the day simply uncovers itself, how people get ignited over the slightest of things as if they are showering the frustration accumulated within them after last nights tiff with their partner!! People show their true, uncompensated self in there-Who is going to judge them there after all? Why to put up a show, why wear mask of goodness? Why be Picture perfect? After all-they are in there not to impress someone but to survive!!

Data shows more men commit suicide than women. You may have just the opposite notion, because more women talk about committing suicide — but they never commit it: they go on talking J Women go less mad than men because they have their daily quota of madness, they never go wholesale mad!! Women almost every day, once in a while go mad, they scream and jump and throw a plate — it is not costly either, but man goes on accumulating madness.

Major road accidents are because men are angry. Aggressive driving has become a serious public safety threat. Men can’t scream so they scream through the accelerator. Men cannot cry, they cannot throw a plate — that is not manly. From the very childhood a boy is taught not to be sissy, not to be like a girl. If he cries they say: Stop! You are a man; a boy never cries, this is only for girls.

At Healing Harmony we believe “Catharsis” will help us cast away our “Picture Perfect” and unveil our “Real-true-natural Picture”.

The word catharsis is derived from the Greek word which is translated as ‘cleansing’ or ‘purification’. Most of the definitions emphasize two essential components of catharsis: the emotional aspect (strong emotional expression and processing) and the cognitive aspect of catharsis (insight, new realisation, and the unconscious becoming consciousness) and as a result – positive change.

Aristotle defined catharsis as “purging of the spirit of morbid and base ideas or emotions by witnessing the playing out of such emotions or ideas on stage”

Breuer and Freud described catharsis as an involuntary, instinctive body process, for example crying.

It is an act of expressing, or more accurately, experiencing the deep emotions often associated with events in the individual’s past which had originally been repressed or ignored, and had never been adequately addressed or experienced

At healing harmony, healing by Catharsis is based on 2 fundamental principles:

1. Do not suppress anything, allow it to fall through expression
2. Do not pour on someone else, it has to be thrown out when you are alone

Just carrying a charming face to work daily does not make you charming. The restlessness, the lack of peace, the anger, the guilt…all of it is lurking within you and it will all have to be thrown out. We all carry a personality-the word personality comes from the word Persona, which in turn is derived from Latin, where it is originally referred to a theatrical mask. The personality you present to other people varies according to the social environment, according to the desired impression you wish to create when interacting with other people and this is far from what you actually are!!

In your daily life you will come across many circumstances, many joys many sorrows, many terrible bosses and horrible mother in laws-many things that have a deep impact on you, certain impacts can be traced back to as back as your childhood. If you suppress these-the unhealthier you become, pour your feelings on others and your difficulties will multiply.

At Healing Harmony we practise well designed techniques by psychologists and spiritual masters for Catharsis, for unburdening. Get off the unnecessary load you are carrying, get a little closer to who you actually are!!

We invite you to come and experience the difference with us!

To know more about our approach and what we do please visit www.healingharmony.in

Dr. Preety Shah-Chauhan