"You go between sad, happy, fearful - you go through all these different emotions." Award-winning author, dance teacher and motivational speaker Shalini Bhalla-Lucas has struggled with mental health and self-care in her life; battling depression, losing a loved one and trying to live life fully without her soulmate by her side. She opened her eyes to spirituality by exploring new religions, travelling, and re-connecting with her passion for dance. Shalini now has her own blog and has just released a new book Happiness! Is It Simply A Mindset Shift?’ which focuses on mindfulness, dance and gratitude. Her blog contains ways of staying physically active during self-isolation and ways of maintaining a clear mind. Mental health is seen as a culture of shame for many people in BAME communities. According to Time to Change, around 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem this year, yet the shame and silence can be as bad as the mental health problem itself. To help us understand why Shalini has been experiencing ill-mental health, it’s probably best to take you back to her journey as a young woman who moved to a new country and used dance to change her path. Shalini was born and brought up in Kenya, where she started dancing at age 3. “My mum took me to my first dance class as she wanted to dance as a child, but her family couldn’t afford it so she always said when I have daughters, I will make sure they go for dance classes.” "I did my Bharatanatyam graduation in Kenya; a form of South Indian classical dance in front of 450 people for three hours and then went to India for further dance training." When Shalini turned 18, she went to Switzerland to do a Hotel Management Diploma and then came to England in 1996 aged 21 to do her masters. Shalini's life turned when she met a blue-eyed, blonde Englishman when moving to Surrey. "Within two months of moving to Guildford, I looked out the window one day and saw a rabbit eating all my plants which I planted the day before; this was in April and I looked over the fence and saw another rabbit, three children playing and a man there, so I was like oh it's next doors rabbit." "I went over there in a huff and knocked on the door and this English man who was absolutely stunning appeared and I just went 'uh uh hello' and that was the first time I met Jeremy. ‘He was the typical guy next door.” Shalini invited him round for a drink one evening and then a month later, started seeing one another. However, her parents did not approve of Jeremy due to various factors as he was a divorcee with three children, 19 years older and also a Christian. “Jeremy was Christian, even though he wasn’t openly practising he identified as one, but as my family didn’t accept Jeremy, I was estranged from my family for 12 years.” With the estrangement and stressful work pressures, Shalini suffered an anxiety attack that led her to being hospitalised in 2002. During her hospitalisation, Shalini explored Buddhism and Atheism. “When I had my breakdown, I lost my faith in Hinduism as god wasn’t serving me well. I read a book by Richard Dawkins called The God Illusion and was blown away by the science and logic in it which resulted into me believing and practising atheism.” According to the National Centre for Social Research, there has been an increase in the number of people who are confident atheists from 10% in 1998 to 26% in 2018. “I was also inspired by Buddhism, but never actually became one as I didn’t want to follow an organised religion; I wanted to take teachings from all religions to what suited and worked for me.” “Overtime, I realised that atheism wasn’t supporting me as I didn’t have the belief in my heart and realised, we don’t need to name our gods or give our gods faces.” The National Centre for Social Research 2019 study showed around 55% of the population in Britain express some sort of belief in some kind of God. “All the religions have the same basic teachings in terms of love, kindness, compassion and tolerance and I realised we can choose our own path.” Shalini knew she couldn’t go back to her former career; so, she reconnected with dance. "I knew I couldn't go back to recruitment hospitality, so I went to a local arts centre to work as a marketing manager. The centre had studio space, so I started using it to dance and realised how healing it was as it gave me life again." When realising how powerful dance was, Shalini started teaching it. “I started Bollywood dance classes in my village in 2005, then in 2009 I thought I should go for a course on Bollywood dance but I couldn’t find any so I decided to create my own company.” In 2010, Shalini founded Just Jhoom! a dance company which combines Bollywood dance and fitness with mindfulness techniques and is the first accredited Bollywood dance training company in the world. "I wanted to teach my style of Bollywood dance, so I took different influences in Bharatanatyam and my training in exercise to create my own style. I wanted to train instructors around the country to show how powerful dance was to me." "At that time, classes in England wanted something fun and people love Bollywood and the music especially so I was excited by that." Despite her mental health struggles of severe anxiety and depression, the business became successful and is celebrating it's tenth anniversary this year. "In the Asian community, if we say we have depression, the community don't see it as an illness as they see it more as a taboo of if she's got depression and is mentally ill, it's her fault and there's something wrong with her." "It's never seen as a medical problem, but more of a social or cultural problem." According to the Mental Health Foundation, those identifying as Asian or Asian British are one-third less likely to be in contact with mental health services. From a 2014 study by the foundation, 90% of Asian women felt they had no-one to talk to due to being isolated in their own families. Shalini and Jeremy were together for 19 years, yet were only married for a a year and a half. However, in 2014, Jeremy was diagnosed with renal cancer and passed away two years later in July 2016. According to Cancer Research UK, there are around 13,100 new kidney cancer cases in the UK every year. For males in the UK, kidney cancer is the 6th most common cancer and is more common in white males, than in Asian or Black males. Macmillan Information Specialist Danielle Mellows explained that cancer can often be diagnosed out of the blue. “Kidney cancers do not always cause symptoms and are often diagnosed by chance when people are having tests and scans.” “I went into the deepest, darkest depth of despair and depression as I lost the will to live and function; I became reclusive for one year.” “For a whole year, I wanted to kill myself and didn’t want to live; I cleared the house, put my affairs in order and stopped taking my blood pressure medication in the hope that something like a heart attack would kill me.” 18 months after Jeremy died, Shalini’s father also passed away from cancer. “When my father died in February 2018, that was a turning point for me as I saw how both these men struggled to live but couldn’t as they had cancer.” “I had life and health, yet I wasn’t living so that's when I decided to do so many fun things in life so when I go ‘up there’ and meet Jeremy and I believe I will, I can say to him I had all these adventures.” In Hindu culture, many believe that humans are in a cycle of death and rebirth called samsara, so when someone dies, their atman (soul) is reborn. The Bhagavad Gita; an Ancient Hindu scripture states: “As a person casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so does the atman cast-off worn-out bodies and enter new ones.” (Bhagavad Gita 2:22) When Jeremy died, Shalini abided by some of the rules used in Hindu culture. “After Jeremy died, I did look to my Indian culture as now I don’t wear a bindi, I cut my hair short and only wear white now on my top half. Part of that was religious, part of it was cultural as a tribute to my husband.” “The most fearful thing to happen to me was Jeremy dying; when I lost him, I lost all fear of everything and I don’t fear living and I live life to the fullest so now, I don’t fear dying.” “If someone said I have a week to live, it’s okay.” In 2019, following Jeremy's death, Shalini contacted The Loomba Foundation; a charity that cares for widows around the world as she was training to become an end of life doula; a person who sits with someone when they’re dying to develop a death plan. “I wrote to them and said I was interested in doing some work for them as I did some research on Hindu widows and was blown away by the discrimination they face; especially in rural area where widows are thrown out by their families. “They end up going to places like Vrindavan and Varanasi with a white sari and chant for a handful or rice and a few rupees and that ends up being their life.” International Widows Day is an initiative of the Loomba Foundation which launched at the House of Lords in 2005 and has since been creating awareness in communities and engaging government in developing policies to combat injustice suffered by widows globally. “They asked me to do some writing for them but I haven’t had a chance because I can’t go to India due to this virus, so I’m stuck in Kenya.; however I am planning to do some work for them from Kenya in a few months’ time.” In September 2019, Shalini decided to consolidate her company and her home in Surrey to go travelling. “I had fibroids on my uterus so had to have an operation in April 2019 and was so unwell by it and when my friend picked me up and took me home, I walked in and was completely on my own in the house I shared with Jeremy for 19 years and 2 and a half years on my own. “I was vulnerable and had no one to make me a cup of tea, a bowl of soup and I realised how lonely I was; I was still trying to live the life I had with Jeremy and I can’t do that when he’s not around.” After recovering, Shalini sat down with her JustJhoom team to close certain aspects, then in June 2019 started clearing the house. “I rented the house out and lived in London for three months, went to Sri Lanka and rode a tuk tuk around the country and then went to Kenya. “My plan was to stay in Kenya, then come to the UK in March and go to Tuscany to work on a vineyard but the pandemic has stopped everything.” “However, I am finding that the universe is giving me all the signs to stay in Kenya because I’m spending more time with my mother who I reconciled with a few years ago, my sister and extended family.” Shalini has three sayings she abides by to get through the struggling times. “I will never move on from Jeremy, but I will move forward with my life and those times of real sadness and real happiness change; from real vulnerability comes courage, from real pain comes positivity and from the wounds that life gives you comes wisdom. “If you believe those three things, you will get through the tough times.” Currently, Shalini is focusing on her JustJhoom blog, where she has added posts about mindfulness, meditations and dance for people to do whilst at home. As she is self-isolating, she will be adding content regularly for the next few weeks. Shalini spoke about the next steps of her career going forward. "When Jeremy died, I set up the Jeremy Lucas Education Fund, so we are supporting 16 children in Samburu, Kenya through secondary and tertiary education. "I will be also be doing some mental health campaigning in Kenya via the local media here and try to work at a government level." Shalini's website is www.justjhoom.co.uk and is on social media @justjhoom. For more information on mental health visit:
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AuthorPriyanka Patel - Editor for AURA Archives
September 2020
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