Editorial Review
by Aarathi Selvan, Founder Pause for Perspective.
Inner Alchemy is the story I have always wanted to hear around energy medicine. It is a book that weaves realistic fiction with energy medicine to show us everyday folks, how our lives can be shaped towards collective liberation. Ayushi is a divorced young person who comes from a family that wasn’t typical to start with, and like most women in her situation, becomes rankled by the discourses of shame, low confidence and self doubts. In the urban landscape of most city dwelling, educated-to-sustain-just-enough, ‘hanging on the thread of support from that one or two people you call family’ kind of a situation, Ayushi connects with a mentor and teacher whose presence and guidance in simple and profound practices of learning to understand emotions, the body and our inner self, weaves ayushi back into her collective of care and support in ways we dream chosen families to be.
As a mental health practitioner, the potential of energy medicine and its interconnectedness with my work as a psychotherapist supports my hope for indigenising and opening up alternative ways of caring for individual and collective health. I have learnt from Selvan, several meditative and energy practices and they support my own life as a mental health practitioner in accessing ways to clear and release what doesn’t serve me while also holding space for difficult experiences and making meanings that support my creative vision for life and work.
Ayushi’s story in the Inner Alchemy is just the beginning. I look forward to ways in which she accesses creative and collective support and sustainence in her life and community. I fully enjoyed reading, re-reading and also talking with Selvan about many aspects of this book and together we were able to build portals of conversation that we haven’t accessed as father and daughter as well. I hope you find this moving and sweet book answer some of your inner wonderments about life, and i hope it builds for you what it seeks to build for me with my own community and relationships.