Healing Words: My Journey to Contentment

By Krish Shah

"We struggle together and we recover together . . . I promise you. You are not alone."

Healing Words: My Journey to Contentment chronicles the real and difficult conversations between author Krish Shah and his friends, family members, professors, and counselors that profoundly humbled, motivated, and e

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: May 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9798885042192

Book preview

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Healing Words

Healing Words

My Journey to Contentment

Krish Shah

New Degree Press

Copyright © 2022 Krish Shah

All rights reserved.

Healing Words

My Journey to Contentment

ISBN

979-8-88504-113-3 Paperback

979-8-88504-740-1 Kindle Ebook

979-8-88504-219-2 Ebook

Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.

–Walt Disney

Contents

Chapter 1:

Conversation

Chapter 2:

Happiness, Success, and Contentment?

Chapter 3:

I’m Listening

Chapter 4:

Moderating Perfection

Chapter 5:

To Wear or Not to Wear a Mask

Chapter 6:

The Duality of Emotion

Chapter 7:

Rewiring Stress

Chapter 8:

Belongingness

Chapter 9:

D=S-M

Chapter 10:

I Wish They Would Understand

Chapter 11:

Faith=Hope?

Chapter 12:

Maahi (Love)

Chapter 13:

Aal Izz Well

Acknowledgments

Appendix

Chapter 1:

Conversation

Her: I want to be a doctor. I want to be a beacon for change. I want to be a resource for help.

The dreams are there. The vision is there. The passion and commitment are there. But something is wrong. Something is always wrong. Whether it is her self-image or her trust in others, she is always accompanied by unwavering insecurity and uncertainty.

Her: I’m okay. I’m fine. It’s not a big deal.

It is a big deal. Doubt leads to hopelessness. Hopelessness leads to despair. Despair leads to pain. That uncertainty and insecurity about yourself and your abilities is a big deal because it can slowly creep on habitual behaviors that seemed routine at first but are now dreadful and dissatisfying—and can even manifest as physical ailments. Studies have reported that people with severe mental health illnesses have a significantly increased risk for diseases such as diabetes or cancer. Research is still ongoing to discuss whether mental illnesses directly cause medical issues or vice versa, but there is still a concurrent risk of both happening to anyone at anytime (Holt 2014). Seventeen percent of youth experience a mental health disorder which is likely a product of relentless insecurity constantly nagging on their self-image and worth (Whitney & Peterson 2019). Among adults, the lifetime prevalence of depression is almost 21 percent (SAMHSA 2021). That is one in five people who will be clinically diagnosed with depression in their lifetime.

The occasional feelings of worthlessness and doubt add up. One thought leads to another and the snowball builds and builds until there is nothing left to consume. Some of the greatest minds in the world, such as Abraham Lincoln, battled episodes of depression throughout their entire lives. You may be strong and tough, but there is never any shame in asking for or needing a sense of companionship.

Western culture doesn’t make it easy to ask for help. Individualism and independence are common Western ideals and asking for help often means you have failed. Going to therapy or opening up to people is failing. Not coping alone means you are weak.

As immigrants from India, my parents were advised by their parents and peers to get their shit together and never accept handouts or else they’d make themselves easy targets to their neighbors. To this day, my parents figure everything out themselves and believe I can too because that is what the Western culture demanded of them to survive as immigrants. By doing this, they believe they have successfully assimilated into American culture.

The American Dream emphasizes the ideals of success and upward mobility but never lays out a map for doing so or defining what success really is. Maybe it’s wealth, reputation, status, fame, or knowledge. Perhaps it’s happiness. Nobody knows what success is objectively, but everyone claims to know what failure is. How does that work? How can we claim to know what is leading us to success (or what is not) if we don’t know what success is as an end goal? That’s like saying I will become healthy without knowing what healthy means.

Since there is no objectivity in success, there can be many subjective definitions or methods for becoming successful. The most widely accepted meaning of success is happiness—or vice versa. It seems intuitive. Happy people are successful and successful people are happy. The problem is that we are essentially defining success, a subjective variable, as another subjective variable, happiness. Again we run into the issue of what qualifies as being happy, and at what point does happiness translate into success?

Then there are stories like Ryan Shazier’s that challenge everything we thought about the definitions of success and happiness.

Ryan Shazier is a former Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker who sustained a severe back injury during his prime football years. A spinal cord contusion rendered him paraplegic and his recovery process included relearning simple everyday things like walking.

Despite his hardships, he still manages to wear a smile on his face. He gives back to those also affected by spinal cord injuries and continues to demonstrate unwavering support for his fellow Pittsburgh Steelers. He has been shown on national television pumping up the team before games.

It didn’t make sense to me how his hopes were dashed in one second and reborn the next, but now I see his definition of success has changed. He made a comeback because of his commitment to serving his community and his team. Success doesn’t have to be black and white. There can be a gray area.

Many people run into this dilemma every day. We try to find the perfect and the objective in the subjective. Where there is creative freedom and openness to interpretation, we try to impose our own ideals of objectivity and convert that into a so-called proper definition.

That is why so many people struggle with depression, anxiety, and stress alone and without the comfort of family and friends or the guidance of mental health professionals. Taking a day off or asking for help, or even just needing a hug, is seen as an objective failure, but a person only failed because our Western culture tried to impose objective expectations on them. What drives this compulsion to meet or surpass an objective standard? According to Abraham Maslow, our attraction to this sense of objectivity is simply a biological product of wanting to belong.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs indicates our need to belong and feel love is the third most important aspect of human life because we are meant to be social, interpersonal creatures. Socialization is vital, and to preserve love and approval from others, we will conform and hold ourselves to the existing objective standard because everybody else does as well. We do not want to alienate ourselves by preaching something against the grain. The fear of this loss of approval, of this perceived failure, is so debilitating that our mental health is disregarded.

Instead of controlling our fear, we let the fear control us. Too often, we choose to ignore red flags. Too often, we choose to avoid tough conversations—the same tough conversations that could help us overcome fear and get past any obstacles in our path.

To expel that overwhelming fear, we have to make a conscious decision to think and act in a way that might seem risky and scary at first. We have to choose every morning to be the person WE think we can be rather than the product of our peers and society. If we choose to clear the fog of objectivity, we can be the product of our own personal thoughts and beliefs. Nothing and nobody can tell us what we can and cannot do because there are no external standards and expectations for happiness and success that are as important as your own.

Know there is never any shame in asking for help. Knowing you need somebody to talk to or lean on takes a great deal of self-awareness and humility. Trusting your loved ones enough to know about your deepest fears and insecurities takes a great deal of courage and strength.