Inner Journey with Dr. Saliha Afridi

I share the framework of Francis Wellers gates of grief - all the grief in us that we have not acknowledged or processed - it’s in all of us

1. We will all lose someone and something we love. This scares us and we run from acknowledging this. If we soften into it- we might know the depths of love.
2. We all have parts that have never known love. If we grieve the times and experiences where we lost these parts, and show them love and bring these parts to the light of love, we might know integrity and wholeheartedness.
3. We all are grieving the sorrows of the world. What humans are doing to each other, the planet, to animals, to the oceans... if we feel this grief, we might know what it means to be connected.
4. We all are grieving the loss of what we expected but did not recieve. This longing for a ‘home’, this need for belonging- it’s our inheritance and coded into our cellular and spiritual memory. If we tend to this grief we might know the duty we have to each other.
5. We all have an ancestral grief. We are not just a sum of our childhoods, but all the ancestors that came before us. If we acknowledge this grief, we might know that we have the power to heal the world.

So much talk about purpose and passion. What if I work and it isn’t my passion but it feeds my family?

How do I find my purpose?

Why are relationships so confusing these days?

How do I get rid of my anger?

• how to sit with difficult feelings... I share my experience of sitting with regret. (Yes I cried and yes I am very ok with crying)
• how do I make my child less angry ?

How do I get out of my comfort zone?

You are feeling painful, difficult, and scary feelings.

I want you to close your eyes and see the emotion inside you and then take a deep breath and I want you to expand all the space around it.

Breathe in through nose and out through the mouth.
Imagine that space growing with every breath.

So the emotion stays the same but you expand.

Make room for the emotion(s).
Expand.

You are not your emotions. You have emotions.
You are vast.
Your spirit indestructible.

I know you don’t like these feelings, I don’t like these feelings too.

They feel so painful and they feel they are breaking you, but if your heart is capable of feeling them, then you are strong enough to bear them.

Soften into the feeling.

You can cry... sob... just keep softening with your breath...stay soft..

It’s ok... let your heart break. I promise, it won’t break down.

That’s the thing with hearts... the more the break... the bigger and stronger they get... the only way to a resilient heart is to let it feel and let it break.

This episode is for parents and children but really for all people who want to know what it takes to have healthy relationships in today's world.

The skills needed for healthy adult relationships are cultivated in childhood... but even as adults you can start cultivating some of these skills if you struggle with relationships.

Relationships are not easy, and they are not always painful or difficult either.

In this episode I talk about how something’s that we hear and see can really mess up our ideas about what a ‘perfect relationship’ is and what can we expect from a long-term relationship.