Anousha

I grew up in a country ruled by forced religion. A country where women’s rights was a laughable Western concept. A country where its oppressive laws, government propaganda, and the school system made for one of the most brutal environments to grow up in. 

My journey into healing began when I realized I had much unlearning to do. All my life I had been conditioned under a school system that taught me that to be a good girl, or even acceptable as a woman, meant that I had to always obey the desires and commands of the male figures in my life. Shame, fear and guilt were used as the biggest tools of oppression in this system. In this society, there is no space for love and unity because separation is created through gender and religious segregation. Everything and everyone is either pious or sinful. Scarcity mindset is rampant and the pursuit of an authentic self is nearly non existent. Every value and pursuit is judged through the lens of the right way of being or the wrong way of being.

While the world around me told the story of fear, inside I knew that truth is made of love, and feels joyful. 

I left home when I was 15 year old to pursue acting. My parents supported my dream, but our immediate society and relatives shunned my family for allowing me to do so. The path of acting was foreign to the small town I grew up in, and being a girl made things worse. I was now setting a ‘bad’ example for all the females that knew us. 

I wanted to be an actor so I can express the emotions I was not allowed to in my home country. I wanted to experience and feel life through characters without judgment. I wanted to experience my humanity without the fear that my society will reject me at any moment. 

As I learned about the art of acting, I became curious about the conditioning and conflicts within a character. I wanted to know how their internal world shaped their narrative. I started to reflect on my own inner world and how it was creating my story. I wanted to know why my confidence was fleeting, why people’s approval was more important than my own, why I was anxious all the time, why the feminine and masculine energy in me was so unbalanced. These were just some of the questions I needed answers for. 

Living in constant fear and survival for all those years in Iran planted a strong seed within me. The seed of curiosity that put me on the path of seeking truth. I knew that there had to be an opposite to what I was experiencing and I made it my quest to find out what beliefs fuelled a life of ease, peace and joy. What is self? How do I connect deeper with myself and Creation? Why is letting go and being in the moment important? How does it feel to release judgment? What is the unknown and why is it powerful? As I learned more about these topics in acting, I saw that spirituality asked the same questions. 

I looked to great teachers and finally understood that I was the creator of my life. I began meditating and healed many of the wrong beliefs I had been carrying about myself and the world. I started writing and for the first time was able to see the thoughts that had been creating the story of the my life. As I learned, I shared my journey with others on social media. I made meditation packages and shared the techniques that changed my life, and even wrote a book about the power of writing for healing. Now, I am creating a bigger community with Joy Culture so we can all heal, learn, unlearn, and thrive together.