| WELLNESS
Mind Mind Healing Healing Navigating amidst the uncertain chaos and turmoil of our lives, we reach points when we lose our peace of mind and feel stagnant in our emotional states. During this period, we should pause for a bit and gain a little perspective on the labyrinth of life. ‘Pause for Perspective’ is a psychological clinic in Hyderabad comprising a team of clinical psychologists and counselors who offer a safe space to understand ourselves, deal with our unspoken issues, and grow as a person. It is an inclusive organization that also offers services to queer and marginalized communities. -Vaishnavi Maloth In conversation with Aarathi Selvan, the Founder and Director of Pause for Perspective. She is a Clinical psychologist, Clinical supervisor, and Teacher in the field of psychology. She works with individuals, children, couples, and families.
How to deal with stress?
The pandemic has changed the landscape of our minds and bodies and how we deal with what has hit us cannot be one that is a simple band-aid solution. Often, we are grappling with something big like the grief of people we have lost, or the jobs we have lost, continue to keep or exhaust ourselves in. Stress is not just burnout because you have been doing a lot of work, it is also emotional and mental exhaustion that doesn’t help you access creativity, connection, and presence in your life. In the midst of what we have been experiencing as a global community, dealing with stress is not a simple parlor trick we can unbox and keep going back to life as it were (which is more stress!) I believe that while there are scores of tricks and tricks to deal with stress that we can access freely with an internet search, the best thing, to begin with, would be a check-in with yourself. It helps to find time with ourselves to ponder about the stressors in our lives, to take stock of the many wonderful ways in which we already ‘deal’ with stress (even listening to music, taking a breath while you are buckling your seat belt before heading to work, all how you offer yourself to rest, pause and joy count!) And then really consider how systems of competition, one-upmanship, and rules that bind you to a typical way of being are stunting your natural ability to be present to yourself and the community you call home. Systems of capitalism and patriarchy are not built to help us ‘deal’ with stress. Our resistance to these systems and 52 SEPTEMBER, 2022 TULIP
the joys we find outside of them are typically the best ways of dealing with stress.