Meet Charan Bashir

We were lucky to catch up with Charan Bashir recently and have shared our conversation below.

Charan , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I found my sense of purpose, a continually developing journey, by taking time and space for self reflection. During different points of my life, I have considered what is the goal that I want to accomplish and the vision that I want to bring to fruition – while at the same time paying mindful attention to the experiences that I navigate in life and what are they revealing to me about elements of the next phase of my path in life. I see finding purpose as a collaborative experience being built with life as I continue to navigate it.

My purpose at this time is to connect with individuals in a way that offers up encouragement for them to discover personal growth and deeper engagement with the multifaceted elements of their lives – in aims of cultivating a sense of increasing fulfillment, restoration, and healing from past challenges and pain. More simply put, I enjoy bringing people deeply into the present moment while I simultaneously and courageously navigate this journey within my own life as well.

As a licensed professional counselor and certified clinical trauma professional, my goal is facilitating radical transformation. I recognize the challenge that is connected to feeling a sense of entrapment from the pain of the past that inhibits true autonomy and agency within the here and now. The practice of mental health therapy has been a vehicle that I have used to fulfill my purpose and interacting with people of different walks of life gives me the opportunity to continually see different facets of the human experience. This deeply benefits my work and provides me with an invaluable perspective on how to facilitate restoration for those who are suffering.

I have always felt a strong intuitive connection to social experiences and the transformative power that they can have when individuals are positively attuned to one another – especially in times of need. Within trauma work, what is widely recognized is the deep impact of incredibly adverse experiences on our mental health; and research also shares with us that the quality of mental health repair is contingent upon the quality of our supportive relationships to return us back to a state of equilibrium after intense pain.

My purpose is connection.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

Learning more about my business is synonymous with understanding my personal journey to the discipline of mental health therapy that began with my engagement with Operation Snowball during my high school years. Operation Snowball is an international youth program that empowers student leaders through prevention education, community advocacy, and leadership development to create a positive impact. It was during my time at this retreat, I was able to discover a deep connection that I felt towards others and a deeper appreciation for varying facets of the human experience through personal story sharing. It was at this retreat as a participant I began to feel a sense of attachment to supporting, leading, and advocating for others. Towards the end of my high school career I felt inspired to become a part of leadership for this event, as Head Director, in order for me to continue to influence and inspire a community of my peers to develop attitudes, beliefs, and cognitive skills that would create the space for development of healthy and competent adults.

Following my graduation from high school, I felt a strong pull to continue the impactful work that I was becoming attached to during my experience with Operation Snowball. This led to me pursuing my undergrad degree in Applied Psychology in order to conceptualize supporting others through the lens of psychological intervention and empirically tested tools. At the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), I was able to find a beautiful crossroad between my passion as a supporter and discovering what was necessary to support individuals and communities using psychologically relevant tools. Following my graduation from UIC, I went on to pursue my graduate degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the Adler School of Professional Psychology – my passion urged me forward on my educational journey as I was hungry to learn more multifaceted methods that could be used to cultivate true change and impact within the lives of others. Through the practice of clinical practicum, I began to see the impact of psychological interventions in real time.

At the present moment, I am a licensed professional counselor practicing mental health therapy in order to cultivate transformation for individuals, communities, and organizations. I am a private practice owner and serve clients in both Michigan and Colorado. I have been incredibly motivated by my experiences throughout my life of supporting others and I currently practice from a trauma informed perspective in order to allow clients to experience true healing and restoration. Trauma has been an area that I have gravitated to due to the value it adds for clients who have experienced various forms of trauma within their lives. Impactful storytelling has always been a way for me to learn and develop an appreciation for the lived experiences of others and within the trauma space, I am able to work collaboratively with clients for them to rewrite the narrative of their lives beyond experienced pain. Beyond individual therapy, I also utilize a trauma informed perspective to impact organizations and communities through consulting – with a focus on organizational culture, DEI, psychoeducation, and employee empowerment to create a stronger throughline to positive employee experiences and organizational profitability.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Three qualities that have been supportive to me in cultivating private practice ownership as a facet of my individual journey are: courage, intuition, and trust. These things are valuable at a personal level in order to cultivate a sense of engagement, drive, and connectedness to the visions that I want to bring to fruition.

I needed courage to take a leap to forge my own path, a knowledge of my own intuitive sense of direction that was fueled and discovered by time spent in deep reflection and courageous honesty with myself, and trust that focusing on greater value alignment with my passions would cultivate meaningful growth for me.

Advice that I would give to anyone who is early in their own personal journey or professional journey is to focus less on the destination and consider the things that you will learn and develop within yourself on the way. This does not imply losing focus of the destination or the goal in mind – yet taking advantage of the learnings that you will encounter along the way and discover how they can support you in continual progression.

Prior to cultivating a private practice, I never said to myself, “I want to become a therapist” or “I want to become a business owner”. In a metaphorical sense, these things found me as I was staying connected to what brought me joy – being with, learning from, connecting with, and supporting others. A major focus on my own journey that I would share is that when you are focusing on staying in alignment with your interests, values, and passions – you will inherently open yourself up to actively seeking out opportunities to bring those things into your reality. In the opposing direction, the more that you focus on the materialized success of your work or what is colloquially referred to as the “destination” (either personally or professionally), you will profoundly miss important lessons that your life will attempt to reveal to you through experience and potentially miss an opportune redirection and pivot that you will need to make in service of your own fulfillment.

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?

My ideal client is an individual who has begun to recognize the present moment challenges that stem from unaddressed pain of the past. My ideal client has experienced trauma or other adverse experiences that, at the time, pushed them out of their comfort zone and required them to respond in ways that kept them safe in the moment.

Often times, these responses to past pain are considered mostly negative and harshly judged. I find that coping strategies developed at the time of adversity were developed with an intention to cultivate safety, even if they might not accomplish that same goal in the present moment. For example, relational pain could have inspired us to close off from others in response to remain safe from past presenting danger, but a lack of vulnerability in the present keeps the prospect of positive relationships further from us.

My ideal client is open to direct feedback and encouraged by the prospect of collaborative work to uncover the impact that past adversity has had upon their present day lives, and willing to confront themselves with compassion and incrementally create a pathway to a sense of healing that prioritizes their individualized needs.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Emily Kriss: http://roamingphoto.com/

Maddy B: https://www.maddybcreates.com/

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