In her world, none of this was taboo

"My mother's pain and suffering led her to become a healer. It took my daughter's trust to give me the confidence to embrace the healing arts and find my own purpose," writes Parool Sharma

“Ye kya kaala jaadu kar rahi ho tum?!”

“What is this black magic you are doing?” I often hear these words when I turn to energy healing for help. 

That particular evening, my daughter was running a high fever and I was talking to my mother on the phone in the middle of the night. She was trying to send distant energy healing to her.

My mother has been a Pranic healer for the past fifteen years. Pranic healing is an energy healing modality, similar to the much more popular Reiki. This is based on the principle that an energy field exists around us and by alterations in this field we can manifest diseases as well as cures for them.

My mother’s journey in pain

Amma developed rheumatoid arthritis when she was 16 years old. I have been aware of my mother’s pain ever since I was born. Her swollen joints. Her medication. Their side effects. How her body protested the cold winters of Dehradun. I remember my mother ferrying my brother and me to various places to seek healing for her condition. Buddhist monasteries, Ayurveda villages, and Homeopaths counted among a string of rheumatologists and physiotherapists.

In 2009, Amma met a Pranic healer who began to heal her and eventually discovered a complication in her uterus. The healer recommended that she get a scan done and the test results confirmed the hunch. My mother was advised an immediate hysterectomy in order to remove the potentially dangerous cyst growing inside her. After the surgery, my mother decided that she would learn Pranic healing so that she could heal herself. 

I was studying at a college in Delhi at that time and would visit my parents every few months. Amma urged my brother and me to learn the basics of Pranic healing.

Learning and forgetting

We could see that she was not only doing better in terms of health but had found a new community of fellow healers. She was finding her purpose in healing friends and extended family and felt more and more confident each day.

All these positive changes convinced my brother and I to sign up for the basic course. After the training, we both forgot what we had learned. I didn’t find the time or the inclination to use the techniques. 

My mother grew in her practice, not only learning more but also getting more and more people to experience energy healing and learn it for themselves. Some people would question the veracity of what she was doing and would call it all kinds of things. Often Amma was made fun of.

Nothing made her give up. What I didn’t know back then was that my mother was opening a door to another world; one which I was destined to enter very soon.

My walk back from the rabbit hole

It was the year 2017. I had just been diagnosed with postpartum depression and had begun my walk back from the rabbit hole with therapy. My mother suggested I take the help of a Pranic healer to support myself. As I began to work with him, I began to experience life very differently. There were too many instances of deja vu. Lucid dreams. Premonitions. Visions. As my energy body became more sensitive, I became very empathic and intuitive. I was drawn to tarot readings and angel numbers.

A part of me felt like I was losing my mind. These were warning signs.

Another part of me felt like I was coming alive, in a new way, in a completely different world. My curiosity about these things distracted me from obsessive thoughts about the failures in my life.

I leaned in. Deeper and deeper. Learning more. Healing more. While always wondering if I was sane or not. The more I tried to learn, the more there was to learn.

In the process, I met new people who were on a similar path as me, coming from different life experiences and backgrounds, but sharing the same passion - to heal the past and create a better future. At the behest of a tarot reader, I bought my own first tarot deck and started teaching myself how to read cards. As I became more and more confident, I started opening up to friends and giving them readings.

Slowly, they referred me to their friends and eventually one of them suggested I do this professionally. But I was afraid of being known as someone who reads cards and believes in the esoteric.

My mother, even though a healer herself, expressed doubt about my spiritual pursuits and cautioned me against losing myself in them. She worried for my daughter and how she would be impacted by all this.

In her world, none of this was taboo

Curious to see what I was doing in our study, my daughter would sit on my lap and ask me the meaning of the pictures on the Tarot cards. She would make up her own stories. In her world, none of this was taboo. None of this was wrong. And eventually, she gave me the strength to come out and be comfortable with this new dimension of my being.

 I started an Instagram account dedicated to card readings and their interpretations. By writing about them, combining my life experiences and what I had learned from those around me, I found a creative outlet that was not only healing, but also satisfying for me as a writer.

Eventually, more and more people began to open up and lean into this world. They felt encouraged to read and write their own interpretations, tapping into their own intuition and finding their own answers.

Why can’t I just be normal?

At work, I never spoke about this side of me. I worried that people would not trust me if they found out about these interests that I was nurturing. I struggled with self-doubt because my everyday life was still in the midst of people who didn’t feel or think like me. It was easy for me to believe that I have lost my marbles. I often asked myself, “Why can’t you just be normal?”

I have hated myself for choosing this path. Yet I have not yet been able to turn back. It has helped me believe that life is still worth living. There is still wonder in this world. Magic exists. Our dreams can come true, even if they look different from how we imagined.

It has made me encounter people who have taught me more than any book can and helped me expand my perspective on life as well as on myself. It has helped me find a greater purpose than my own life.

Embracing the esoteric and it’s power

That night as I sat with my daughter, holding her burning hand in mine, praying for the healing to work, a new strength emerged within me. It didn’t matter what others said or felt.

What mattered was that I finally had absolute faith in the fact that something was working for me and my child and I was confident that she would be okay. No matter what. 

Her fever came down in a few minutes and she slept peacefully.

This essay was written by Parool Sharma in response to the prompt, ‘Taboo’ in the Memoir writing workshop facilitated by Natasha Badhwar.

Ochre Sky Stories showcases the transformative power of storytelling, featuring the most evocative writing from the Memoir writing workshops conducted by Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai.  This is a space to practice authenticity. To reclaim the power and gift of vulnerability.

Parool Sharma lives in Mumbai and juggles between mothering, writing, and tarot reading. She believes that everyone is born with the capacity to answer their own deepest, most complex questions. Through her experience in card reading, creative writing and teaching, she facilitates and holds space for people to access their inner guidance. She hopes that her work will help destigmatize the healing arts and contribute to creating a more self-aware and compassionate world. 

Thank you for subscribing to Natasha’s Newsletter and Ochre Sky Stories. This post is public, do share it with friends and on social media. Send us an email!