Holistic Bonfire

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, CCTP, TMHP, CYT

Events

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SAMHAJ’s Annual Picnic

SAMHAJ_Picnic

SAMHAJ is the South Asian Mental Health Association of New Jersey. Under the gracious leadership of Ms. Aruna Rao, for last 15 years it has been actively providing support, education and advocacy for South Asians affected by serious mental illness.

SAMHAJ provides:

  • “Support for families and individuals affected by mental illness through support groups, and referrals to bilingual and culturally competent mental health services. We offer a supportive environment to help you and your family to learn to navigate the often complicated mental health system. Our South Asian staff and volunteers speak Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Gujarati, Konkani, and Marathi.
  • Professional guest speakers are invited to speak at educational workshops and lectures on issues that are important to your family’s journey towards recovery. Workshops cover subjects such as psychiatric medication, social security disability, rehabilitation and vocational training, coping with caregiver stress and anxiety, children’s mental health and many more topics.
  • Workshops for mental health providers, other social service agencies and schools seeking to learn more about the rapidly growing South Asian community in New Jersey in order to provide culturally competent services.”

Annual Picnic

SAMHAJ celebrates many events throughout the year. During the weekend of 8/2/15, SAMHAJ members came together to participate in the annual picnic in a serene park in East Brunswick. It was a beautiful day with the Sun shining; subtle wind blowing; trees dancing to the wind; birds chirping; and all of us catching up with each other under the clear blue sky and fresh air.

During the picnic we enjoyed Indo-American food; songs; quiz; games; jokes; mental health related information; and few wonderful experiences of members so far for the year 2015. Many new talented members joined us as well!

The whole group was a healthy combination of people in various age groups; members in recovery; care takers; professionals and well-wishers. The common denominator was the feeling of one big family in which all members are motivated to work towards the common cause to the best of their abilities.

I can’t help to think about the event in context of my favorite Yoga Philosophy and Neuroscience. I bet the vibrations (Yoga Philosophy) that were being released by everyone under the blue sky were powerful, positive and full of compassion! Going by the Neuroscience, I believe everybody was releasing the “happy chemicals” like Dopamine and Serotonin during those hours!!

Overall another stimulating and satisfying experience with SAMHAJ group. I am already looking forward to the SAMHAJ Holiday Party in October/November!!

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Mindfulness at DBSA

Suruchi Saini, MA, LPC, NCC, CCTP

One more time, I presented “Mindfulness with Neuroscience and Yoga Philosophy” at Depression and Bipolar support Alliance (DBSA), Morristown, NJ. A group 35 people/enthusiasts got together to learn and share about Mindfulness/Meditation practices and their benefits on multiple aspects of life.

Soul Connections

During the workshop, I spoke about how being Mindful daily we develop a pure connection with ourselves; our near and dear ones; and eventually with the whole Universe. Yes this sequence is very important. If we are unable to listen to our own mind, body and soul, how can we perceive messages from other peoples’ mind, body and soul to have the soul connection? “The soul connection”, “the frequency” or “the limbic system connection” you call it by any name according to your orientation.

Today when we look around, high percentage of people are lacking the soul connections. The most shocking and painful are the connections between parents and children. In general due to lack of soul connections, we are increasingly unable to build healthy relationships. Result – misunderstandings; inability to express; feelings of loneliness even when surrounded with family/friends/co-workers; Stress; Anxiety; Depression; mistrust; disrespect towards ourselves, our near and dear ones and eventually the universe.

Also, due to lack of healthy connections, we are becoming like exhausted machines which are functioning somehow due to our past programming but have no idea about how our other parts and our surrounding are doing. Yes you can say that machines are not supposed to know that and of course they can run nonstop anyways, but we can’t. We are supposed to be aware. That awareness comes from mindfulness, by paying attention on ourselves first and then on people and everything else in our surroundings

Yoga Philosophy

During the presentation, we also briefly practiced three “Mudras” to reduce anxiety; increase focus and overall healing. I call them “quick fixes” which can be used anytime in a day, especially during and after the stressful moments.

However nothing beats the daily meditation for 10-20 minutes though. Meditation gives our mind the clarity and stability that we all need, the same stability that we were once born with. Once our minds are stable, the triggers won’t affect us that much, and for some reason if they do, our recovery will be faster!

In the end, as usual we discussed about the basic needs of our body like – 8/8 rule and of course healthy diet. According to the Yoga Philosophy, our GI track has to be in excellent order for our mind and body to stay healthy. Yoga helps us to connect our mind with the body which is needed to achieve the state of Homeostasis/Equilibrium.

Collective Consciousness

I believe when more and more people are in the state of Homeostasis, the collective consciousness increases. That’s exactly what we need today more than ever. Like we are personally responsible for ourselves and collectively for our family, same way we are also responsible for our collective/world hemostasis. Each one of us matter, let’s begin to make soul connections with ourselves; our near and dear ones and the universe. ~ Peace ~

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Mindfulness for Healthcare Professionals

Suruchi at St Peters

One more time I had the opportunity to conduct a Mindfulness and Meditation workshops as part of Cardio Metabolic Institute (CMI) team, at St Peter’s Hospital and their Family Health Center in NJ. Met a group of professionals who work hard and give their best to every single patient they interact with directly or indirectly every day.

In the workshop, some of the participants shared that they have been practicing some form of meditation and mindfulness “to keep ourselves calm” and stable at work as well as home. Still there was a great enthusiasm to learn more tools and techniques that Yoga and Mindfulness practices offer. Some of the tools we discussed in the workshop:

  • Using our five senses daily, especially during and after any form of distress
  • Listening to your gut feeling more often, especially when confused
  • Following 8/8 rule which means minimum eight hours of sleep and eight glasses of water/day to keep mind and body stable, and prepared for daily stressors
  • Meditating regularly for overall health, and early recovery from daily distressing situations
  • Pressing you face with your warm hands and/or hugging yourself
  • Using white/yellow lights as per the need and many other tools.

Even though this appears to be a list of simple to do things, our mind and bodies need intense work to make them part of our lives and that’s where I help my clients.

It is very important for a healthcare professionals to stay calm and in control during any moment of distress because in those critical moments, they are not only helping their patients but are also role modeling for everyone else involved!

During the workshop, the participants performed three different kinds of meditations and whole body muscle relaxation. We followed with discussion on how Neuroscience has been providing evidence about benefits of daily meditation in bringing positive changes in our mind/body chemistry which play an exceptional role in keeping our mind as stable as a calm river, without any ripples.

In the end, I must admit that representing CMI, and presenting to this group was very satisfying. I always wanted to do something for the fellow professionals. Being part of the huge healthcare system, I am aware of the daily challenges, especially when it comes to expressing compassion for clients/patients while a professional herself is having a bad day. That demands enormous energy and strength. So hats off to all those professionals who, in spite of their own stresses,   provide care to their clients with a smile!!

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SAMHIN

SAMHIN_June 2015On June 14, I had the opportunity to attend “Family Day” in Edison along with two dedicated Psychiatrists – Dr. Vasudev Makhija and Dr. Prakash Amin, representing SAMHIN. South Asian Mental Health Initiative and Network (SAMHIN), is an initiative founded by Dr. Vasudev Makhija to reach out to the South Asian population to educate them about the importance of appropriate mental health and the resources available.

SAMHIN, was formed in 2014 to address a broad range of mental health needs of the growing South Asian community nationwide, beginning with New Jersey. It’s Mission statement is:

  • Educate, engage, and empower the South Asian community to promote mental health literacy.
  • Serve as a resource to provide consultation to health care policy makers and health care delivery facilities.
  • Increase collaboration between existing mental health organizations that address specific aspects of mental illness, increase awareness of the existence and roles of these organizations, and decrease fragmentation in services provided to the community.
  • Promote and conduct research on mental health to serve the South Asian community in the U.S.
  • Develop a searchable database of South Asian mental health care providers, social services, and mental health resources to improve access to mental health care.
  • Overcome stigma of mental illness.
  • Explore ways of making affordable treatment services available.

During the event, people from all walks of life asked us questions regarding the organization and the ways to take care of themselves. I must say that in the past few years that I have been attending events like these, I have seen a change happening. More and more people are inquiring regarding mental health and self-care. Over the years, generally people have become more open to accept the fact that external help is needed, and have started to reach out for the same. This is a positive change and which gives a lot of hope!!

Also, it was very encouraging to see that many guests showed their gratitude towards SAMHIN and few of them also volunteered to help the organization in spreading the word.

At the event, there was also plenty of food; rides for kids; music etc. Overall it was a beneficial and fun filled family event. I am glad that every year it takes place in Edison, around same time!!!

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Be Yourself

Suruchi_SAMHAJ

Speaking at SAMHAJ/NAMI event on June 4, 2015 was another wonderful experience. People came from all walks of life with questions in their minds ranging from “who am I”, “why I am unable to control my mind”, “why I am unable to communicate with my children or my partner” and “why I am still not happy after working so hard”.

States of mind

During the event, we explored the various stages of human being and the obstacles we face in them. We also discussed about our different states of mind which according to Yoga Philosophy are – “Tamas”(Unconscious; ignorant; negative; injure others; sluggish), “Rajas”(Conscious; active; reason, seeks power & pleasure), “Sattva”(Super conscious; very active; powerful; one with everything; serene; content; happy). At times when we are in a particular state of mind, we may find it difficult to understand others who are in a different state of mind than ours. That’s why knowledge of these three states of mind and being Mindful is extremely important.

Roles in Life

Later we discussed that we are born as “Spiritual Beings”- happy; peaceful; loving; contented but while playing different roles as children; siblings; partners; parents; grandparents; friends; employees; bosses; business owners and so on, most of the times we get disconnected with our real self. All these roles take us away from our Spiritual self because we put in so many efforts in all of these roles to do well in life which is generally expected. However we forget to feed in or make efforts to take care of our Real Self. Result, an unnatural life style leading to internal and external chaos; superficiality; stress leading to numbness/disconnection.

Yoga Philosophy, Mindfulness and Neuroscience have many tools to help you to connect with yourself again. To begin with, start Meditation 5-10 min/day, initially with music and later without it.

First step to make a change

People mentioned that it’s difficult to have that kind of discipline, I disagreed. Disciplining is easy because we have been doing this since childhood, the difficult part is making it a priority in our thoughts. After that all we have to do is follow our thoughts!!

Dear reader, if for some reasons, you can’t do that initially, seek help. It’s even more important for you to do it. It’s often mentioned that everybody needs to meditate for 20 minutes daily, and if you are too busy to do this, then you should do it for about an hour!!!

Figure out your way to find your “Real self”. All the acquired roles can give you pleasure for some time but the “Happiness” will come from within you, when you are your most natural. Be yourself!!!