We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shalena Ali a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Shalena , sincerely appreciate your selflessness in agreeing to discuss your mental health journey and how you overcame and persisted despite the challenges. Please share with our readers how you overcame. For readers, please note this is not medical advice, we are not doctors, you should always consult professionals for advice and that this is merely one person sharing their story and experience.
Overcoming and persisting through mental health challenges
We often hear the words “Be Kind”, as you never know what someone else is going through internally. That’s because we’ve all been conditioned to wear an emotional and energetic mask as we move through life and interact with people. The very reason why you’ll often notice it was the “extroverts” or “ happy” ones who took their own life, yet it’s not limited to these labels.
As an introvert, growing up very shy, quiet and reserved I was brought up in a community where everyone was very tight lipped about their struggles. Life challenges, health challenges, relationship challenges were never spoken about.
Looking back on my 40 years of life, a mother to two boys, I realise that just because something wasn’t spoken about, does not mean it wasn’t there.
As an 80s child growing up in the North East of England, it was a lot different to the way I see my own children living out their childhood.
The feelings that come up for me are those of loneliness, although I never felt like I had a terrible childhood. I was provided for. I had food and shelter, we had family friends. It was more an emotional disconnection to my reality, which I never realised the importance of until only a few years ago.
I associate colours of grey yet at the same time I remember beautiful hot summer days of playing outside in the street with my school friends on our bikes and skip-it’s and now I feel old mentioning that.. However, we also had a very close knit community that my first generation immigrant parents had created with others of the same S Asian descent. Though we were few and far between at the time. We lived in a largely white populated working to middle class residential area. My father along with many of his friends and associates were restaurant and business owners. We had a good childhood, I never felt like we had to go without. My father did his best to work and provide for us so we always felt safe and loved in that way.
However, I was a sensitive child. I said little but absorbed a lot. Largely due to the language barrier my mother had at the time with understanding very little English, I remember sensing this feeling of fear. And I can understand it now. She was away from her home, family and friends. Her family members who were in the UK all lived down in the South. I remember the days they would send and receive the blue and red Air Mail envelopes as that’s how they would communicate with my grandparents back home. My father worked a lot and my mother was a home maker. That was my childhood in a nutshell.
Fast forward two decades into my 30s, married with two children a lot of my unconscious emotional wounds – that I had suppressed all those years began to surface. And this is where in the space of 2 years my life fell apart. Essentially I decided I had to live my life for me, I had to stop living to please others. I wanted my children to experience a mother who was authentic and true to herself. So we decided to separate, my father passed away after nearly a decade of health issues and needing care day and night. It was like I needed to get into my cocoon, go within myself, so I could come out as the butterfly. I knew something had to change.
I felt I wasn’t being myself my whole life, merely following the crowd, ticking boxes and blending in but feeling disconnected and unfulfilled deep inside. And so I found myself diving deep into personal development and healing. Coming out on the other side as a completely new person I finally found my life purpose and mission to help other S Asian women do the same. To heal their hearts and find their true voice, so that they could raise the standards for themselves, their children and break cycles of generational trauma. No more being quiet, good girls. It’s time for bold, courageous feminine queens to emerge and take back their crowns.
It started with re-discovering myself and my purpose, and being bold enough to say yes to myself, choosing myself and going against the grain. For me, this is where fulfilment, alignment and connection is found, it’s where mental health challenges subisde, because you are true to yourself. I want this for every woman feeling unfulfilled in life and in their relationships.
This is the beauty of the healing journey, I have witnessed in myself and in the women I coach. Mental health challenges begin where there is a dominant feeling of lonliness, not feeling seen and heard. Emotionally disconnected from your parents/caregivers. As long as the emotional wounds haven’t been felt and released, the emotional wound stemming from the feelings of rejection, abandonment and betrayal lead to this core belief of – not being good enough. Anyone who feels fully seen, heard, loved and accepted is able to build a resilient mind and heart. For me, this is the way to address and overcome mental health concerns and it starts here – as I said in the beginning – being “kind”, but to ourselves first. With choosing to have the right people around you.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I’m a mindset and relationship coach. I’ve spent the last 6 years diving deep into learning the key elements of creating successful long lasting and fulfilling relationships. I help single, married and divorced South Asian women over 25 heal their hearts from past heartbreaks, overcome the emotional wounds of rejection, abandonment, betrayal and shame. As these emotional wounds often keep even the most successful, independent women in a pattern of attracting and pining for unavailable men or stuck in unfulfilling relationships.
By healing these unconscious pain points I help women create an upgraded identity for themselves, as a High Calibre Woman who attracts her right match without overworking to get noticed, forever swiping through apps or worrying about being left on the shelf. Instead, she gets to be chosen by her soul mate, by learning how to choose herself first.
My mission is all about helping women raise their standards, to stop allowing in, wasting years of their life being around for unavailable men which keeps them in a cycle of heartbreak and relationship stress. It’s my purpose to help women find relationship peace, in a deeply connected, aligned and fulfilling soulmate relationship. So that they can have the right support network around them and in a partner with which they can find their true life’s purpose too and live out and create the legacy they want to leave behind. I call these High Calibre Relationships. They are still few and far between but I know it won’t be like this for long as more and more men and women see the power in healthy conscious relationships.
This is what excites me the most. When my clients tell me this inner healing work is transformational, life changing and now it’s about living their life’s purpose with authenticity. It’s about the legacy an breaking cycles of trauma for their children.
My signature coaching program is called Ready to Receive and it’s all about becoming a match for this kind of life and dream relationship. See I found that if we’re not ready to receive, those unhealed wounds cause you to self sabotage because a healthy loving, abundant life and relationship feels so foreign. Ready to Receive was created for the woman who knows she has a deep desire to live the life of her dreams and she knows that power is within her own hands with the power of her own free will, choice and ability to make aligned decisions.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
1. Knowledge is power and with power comes great responsibility, you’ll know if you’re a Marvel fan! Awareness is key to healing. So bringing the unconscious to your conscious mind is the foundation for healing. Ignorance is bliss but you can’t change what you’re not aware of.
2. Having the understanding that it’s never too late to change anything in your life. You are never too old to choose you and your heart’s desires. I believe they are signs from God, that tug in your heart is there to guide you. Your past does not dictate your future. As Marie Forleo reminds us in her self help book, Everything is Firgureoutable and so where there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s just a case of staying opening to seeing the signs and being willing to take courageous action towards them.
3. Several interviews with every elder generation, in their 80s and 90s always advise us against a life of regret. They remind us to live for ourselves and not for other people. Regret is one emotion which is the most difficult to overcome, we don’t have the ability to go back in time like in the famous 80a movie, Back to the Future, so we must make the most of the present. Close your eyes, imagine being in the last days of your life, what do you regret the most? Now open your eyes and see that you have another chance to make a difference, do the thing which won’t lead to a life of regret. Don’t be the one wondering what could have happened if y0u had believed and trusted in yourself.
If you are suffering with anxiety, depression or any other mental health challenge. My first advice is to seek professional support, then seek out the support where you feel seen and heard. The most important part is finding those who can hold a loving space for you and believe in you. Then allow them to help you find your answers within. Find your purpose, you will have the answer even if it’s hidden at the moment but it’s helpful to have a focussed goal. There needs to be a clear vision where there is room for growth. As Tony Robbins mentions, growth is one of the 6 human needs so we must be growing in life to feel good about life.
As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?
The first book I came across and purchased at my lowest point was the first self help book I purchased. As mentioned earlier, it was Marie Forleo’s – Everything is Figureoutable.
The title says it all.
Before this, I lived my life thinking I wasn’t capable of anything. I was a perfectionist who never attempted anything because I was too afraid of failing and could never get it perfect enough to start. Several times I wanted to start a baking/desserts business over the years but was too caught up in getting the name, logo and menus perfect. It wasn’t until I started BEFORE I was ready that I began Truffles Galore, where I sold my homemade chocolate truffles during the pandemic. Simply by posting pictures of my homemade treats and making them available for people to buy, and they did to my surprise!
And so I learned that you don’t need all your ducks in a row. It doesn’t have to be perfect and it’s okay if you fail. That’s how you learn and get better! It’s commitment and consistent action that makes you successful.
Start before you’re ready, in fact that’s the most perfect time. I learned that there is no such thing as perfect so you may as well do you best and your best is enough.
What you tell yourself and how you speak to yourself is important. Do you say you can’t or you won’t do something? We always do the things that are most important to us. We make time for our priorities so we have to be honest with ourselves. When you say you can’t you victimise yourself. When you say you won’t, it simply means it’s not high enough on your list of priorities, and that’s okay.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: shalena_ali_
