I first saw Hema a couple of years ago. I was intrigued as to the sudden positive change in a close friend. This friend had also helped me previously with a few spiritual dilemmas and directed me towards the works of Deepak Chopra, Rumi and other such figures. I liked all the referrals my friend had been giving me as they resonated strongly with me. My friend suggested that I join the meditation class run by Hema.
I do have beliefs in God and Spirit and was pleasantly surprised by how good the meditation course was, and the meditation that I learned and now practice daily has radically improved my experience of life. I began to see Hema as for one-on-one sessions a few months after the mediation course. I remember in the first session, thinking ‘what am I doing here? I don’t have a problem.’
I had made the booking seemingly involuntarily. It was as though a deeper part of me knew this person could help me, but my outer person held deep suspicions of psychologists and always associated their engagement by people other than me. But there I was, in my first session, talking almost without breath and painting a picture of what I thought was a very nice life, containing what I thought was reasonable happiness. Enough happiness to be considered fortunate – so I thought.
But Hema’s summary revealed otherwise and was like a missile that went straight to the point. I wasn’t happy at all. That’s why a part of me insisted that I seek out help. I had also had some alarming experiences where my behaviour had been very uncharacteristic and potentially quite self-harmful which made me realise that things were only finely balanced at best.
Hema had identified the main problem that I already knew on a deeper level, and I knew I had two choices: to acknowledge and face the truth, or to refute what I knew deep down was true. The former is what I chose as I knew somewhere down the line it would pay off. The latter I knew was only buying time in a state of disenchantment (that I had become so used to, I almost didn’t know any better). The former, involved a lot of painful self-admissions, painful lifting of layers, and many upsetting adjustments to my life that I had spent years building up.
This process of facing yourself, although sometimes painful, was and has been one of the most amazing phases of my life. To see yourself as you really are can be painful, but it can also reveal some surprising characteristics – hidden gems of your person. With Hema’s help and guidance, I was able to admit to myself that the numerous and delicate coping systems I had so carefully put in place year by year, were no longer working for me, and that my heart’s desires were being caged, and that ‘a light had gone out’ inside me.
A thought I distinctly remember admitting to myself years earlier. I was living a half a life, where I genuinely felt that a part of me inside was dying slowly and if I didn’t do something soon, things might get to an irreversible point. After a couple of months of therapy, I was ready to make the very tough decisions that were life-changing and I knew would require an enormous upheaval and would generate huge instability. It involved leaving my home, and leaving work relationships in businesses that I had started and been a hugepart of. I also knew other personal relationships would suffer and some would terminate.
Deep in my unconscious mind, I knew that people can be happy needing very little, and I had the love of my family and friends so I was blessed. I would never go hungry and would always have a family home – Moving back to my parents was the worst that could happen. I also noticed a little spark light up from inside me. My world was coming down around me, but the ignition of the flame inside was a sign that I had made the right choice. The period of stagnation was over, and I was to a degree in a free-fall that I secretly longed for. There was also a sense of relief that is indescribable.
Two years on from that and my life is radically altered and the spark within has now turned into a small fire and I’m hoping it will become a large fire soon enough. No sooner did I decide to make the most painful changes, did all sorts of events unfold. An immediate awaking of new love, a new home – more authentic and more charming than I could ever have imagined – found me, business worked itself out and I’m now at the beginning of the career I always wanted and there is a gentle hum inside me that is the genuine sign that I am happier.
No matter what stresses and trials come before me, the constant happy hum inside makes them much easier to deal with and I know they are troubles that I’m meant to have in order to learn and I know that this is the life I’m meant to live. Even when the troubles mount as they sometimes do, I have no regret that this is where I’m meant to be and no regret about taking the course of action that I did in order to break away from the stagnation and see a new and wonderful life unfold.
Hema has subsequently helped me adopt different approaches to work and business that have been indispensable as well as undoing a lot of unhelpful beliefs, especially religious,
and replacing them with more constructive ones, that I believe are closer to the Truth.
I admire Hema for her abilities to see into the heart and to bypass the ‘noise’ that I present her with. And to consistently reveal aspects of truth that I know are true but would have taken years to find out myself.