Encounters with psyche

They are never neat, linear, or easy. Each one is an initiation — into what was once hidden, feared, shamed or forgotten.
The stories that follow are about what unfolds when we commit to meeting ourselves.

As Joseph Campbell said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

Each story here is a glimpse of that moment of courage and the quiet, slow work of becoming, in their own words

I came to therapy to find my work. I found myself

When I began therapy, I was searching for my calling — work that would feel authentic and true. I didn’t realise I was really looking for myself. Over time, the process revealed patterns I had lived within unconsciously and taught me to meet them without shame. What emerged was a quiet acceptance — a stillness that holds grounding, stability, and pause.

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Finding meaning in what felt unbearable

I first met Reshma at a talk, intrigued by how personal patterns could be seen within a wider archetypal canvas. Years later, when a painful crisis broke open through my daughter, I felt I was drowning as a mother. In that dark night, glimpsing the larger framework she revealed helped my unravelling make sense — and gave me ground when everything else felt like quicksand.

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Learning to live from aliveness

From the very first sessions, I felt seen — not just through my words, but through my being. Therapy helped me reclaim courage, integrate my polarities, and meet parts of myself I hadn’t known existed. I’ve gained love of self, gratitude for life, and the courage to be my own person — to live from aliveness.

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I remembered the child I had left behind

I came into this journey at a turbulent time, when I felt groundless and was searching for a ground within. As stability grew between us, I was able to delve deeper — to reach out to my depths and find the abandoned child who needed tending. She appeared through my dreams, and soon I was able to hold her in ways that healed the disconnection.

 

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I learned to stand up for myself — and to hold myself gently

Early sessions gave me courage to explore parts of my psyche I had never noticed. Through all the disruptions — moving countries, separation, COVID — therapy became an anchor. I began to see myself with compassion, to trust my dreams, and to stand up for myself. For the first time, I told myself: I am OK because I have me.

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From Victim to Victorious

When I entered therapy, I was feeling helpless — a puppet in the hands of fate. The early days were tough; my wounds surfaced, and I often wanted to leave. Slowly, I began to feel more settled. I moved from complaint to courage, from control to empathy, from blindness to vision. The greatest gift of all has been acceptance — of myself, of others, and of my child’s challenges.

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Facing the darkness, I found the light — and the freedom to live the life I always wanted

I was used to quick results — but when I was in the abyss, you didn’t pull me out. You stayed there with me. Facing the darkness, I found the light — and the freedom to live the life I always wanted.

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I came to therapy to find my work. I found myself

When I began therapy with Reshma, I was searching for my calling — work that would feel authentic, long-term, and aligned with who I am. I had just completed an expressive arts therapy course and felt directionless about what came next. I hoped therapy would help me find clarity, though I now see I was really looking for myself.

From our first sessions, I felt seen. When Reshma looked at my archetypal map, the themes she spoke of mirrored my inner experience with uncanny accuracy. That recognition built immediate trust. Our conversations flowed freely, always circling what was alive in the moment. There was ease, depth, and compatibility. I looked forward to every session.

Over time, therapy began revealing patterns I had lived within unconsciously — how I put my spouse on a pedestal, dimming my own light; how I sabotaged myself by holding back, then bursting in frustration; how I remained trapped in a victim narrative instead of standing in my own agency. I came to see that the qualities I admired in others were reflections of my own gifts, and that my shadow wasn’t my enemy but my teacher.

Through our work, I learned that I intimidate people sometimes — that my directness and authenticity can be unsettling — and that this too was something to understand, not correct. I discovered how deeply intuitive I am, how energy and truth move through me, and that I could use this awareness to discern rather than judge.

Reshma’s approach was unsparing but compassionate. She never sugar-coated the truth. In those early months, therapy often felt like being “punched in the face” by reality. I wanted refuge from my pain, but instead I was invited to face it — to meet what I feared rather than avoid it. When I asked whether something I’d discovered was “good or bad,” she would remind me there was no such thing — only meaning to be made.

The constancy of our rhythm mattered: showing up every Wednesday, no matter what, became its own act of faith. Over time, journaling, dreamwork, and the courage to keep returning brought integration. I learned to see that progress in therapy isn’t linear; it spirals and deepens, like life itself.

Three years later, I no longer feel the compulsion to keep fixing or improving myself. What emerged instead was acceptance — of myself and of others. I’ve learned to honor imperfection, to stay with failure or repetition without shame, and to hold my experience with patience and compassion.

There’s a Hindi word that captures it best: Thehraav — a stillness that holds grounding, stability, and pause. That’s what I found through this work. A ground beneath my feet, steady and real.

Finding meaning in what felt unbearable

 I first met Reshma at a talk and what struck me most was the sense that personal patterns could be seen within a wider archetypal canvas.

At that time, I was already in analysis and working as a counsellor. I had begun to understand my emotional patterns, but what she spoke about seemed to move underneath that — a meta-view of the hidden currents shaping life. I wanted to see what lay beyond my conscious reach.

We worked together in long stretches across different periods of my life. During one of them, a deep crisis broke open through my daughter — a painful, disorienting period where I felt I was drowning as a mother. My grief, guilt, and fear felt unmanageable. Reshma helped me glimpse the archetypal grip of what was unfolding. The sense that there was a larger framework — a container that could hold what was happening — allowed my day-to-day unravelling to make some kind of sense.

She was honest when something in our work began to pull her too close to my anguish; she named it and re-established the frame. It wasn’t easy for me to hear, but I respected it deeply. Her clarity, her refusal to collude, gave me something solid to stand on when everything else felt like quicksand.

Over time, our sessions helped me separate from my daughter and see how we fed each other’s fears — how I might have carried the devouring mother archetype in her psyche. I learned to sit with that knowledge without turning it into self-punishment, to withdraw with compassion rather than desperation.

Sometimes the sessions felt like spells — the insight vivid in the moment but dissolving like mist. It was the mystery and curiosity that kept me coming back. Through our work, I came to understand suffering, sacrifice, and surrender as necessary parts of transformation — the “payment for passage,” as she once said.

She encouraged my creative process as part of healing. I began sharing my drawings and poems with her; her receptivity helped me take them seriously, not as decoration but as psyche speaking. Later, her framing of art as something transpersonal — received through us rather than produced by us — changed how I could share my work publicly.

Through years of working together, humor became one of our allies. We laughed often. It kept shame and self-judgment from hardening. That laughter made space for acceptance.

Our conversations helped me understand my ambivalence toward structure — my need for it and my rebellion against it. She helped me see that some things can’t be changed, only borne consciously.

Looking back, I see that the crisis we worked through prepared me for the years that followed — for loss, death, and grief. When both my parents passed, I could stay with it. I could be present to the end without turning away.

Today, I can live with uncertainty more fully. I can sit with not knowing, with the unpredictability of life, and catch my dissociation sooner. I still look to the skies, but now it’s not for escape — it’s for meaning.

Thank you, Reshma, for your honesty, your steadiness, and your refusal to look away. You helped me find ground where there was none.

Learning to live from aliveness

 What brought me to therapy was a desire to deepen into myself — to expand my awareness and find a space where I could express freely and fully.

From the very first sessions, I felt inspired by the insightfulness of the work. I had been yearning for someone to see the parts of me that were repressed, and from the beginning I felt that intuition and attunement. Week after week, hidden material began to surface, and I looked forward to exploring the nuances it revealed.

In that process, I started reclaiming my courage. I saw more clearly how co-dependent I felt in some of my relationships, how much adventure and learning nourished me, and how I had repressed my anger and competitiveness. I began to work with both my love for individuality and my tendency to seek partnerships. Some of the images you offered — “fight the good fight with Pritish’s mum,” “being the bridge between the old and the new,” “not toppling the apple cart but having the courage to be your own person” — resonated deeply.

I continue to occupy both easy and difficult spaces, including corporate training, with a desire to be embodied. Sometimes I can, other times inadequacy or panic takes over — but therapy helped me integrate these polarities: Auroville and Delhi, the village and the city, standing up to authority, noticing my own impact and yearnings. Walking life’s path with intuition and courage is what therapy put me in touch with.

What made the difference for me was your ability to hear me not just through my words but through my being; your encouragement toward my own growth; your remembering, making connections, and challenging me when I was blind. You helped me see life symbolically. I loved coming each week into a space of deep engagement, and I already miss our rhythm.

In therapy I could finally see the ways I suppress and deny. While the process itself didn’t bring discomfort within the sessions, it heightened my awareness in the outside world. This had repercussions: it changed some of my choices, made me more aware of self-hatred, smallness, and my habit of disempowering myself to keep relationships going. It also helped me meet my restlessness, my puella-like tendencies, and my lack of commitment to my own art and creativity — parts that still need my love and action.

Stepping out of this therapeutic container brings up grief. I have gained a deeper meeting with myself — especially parts I didn’t even know existed: competition, jealousy, ambition, authority struggles. I have also gained a relationship with you, Reshma, a vitalising, energising force in my life.

Today I notice my yearning to be even more artistic, alive, and expressive. I feel gratitude for life. I like myself and take my dreams, hunches, and intuition more seriously than I ever did. I have gained love of self, and a little more freedom and independence from my patterns of co-dependence — a work in progress. I’ve internalised that my path is about the courage to be myself in communities, and to navigate the web of complexities that come from systems that are not soul-led. I feel deep gratitude for you, Reshma, for holding me through this journey.

Through my dreams I remembered the child I had left behind. Learning to tend her brought me back to myself and gave me a new ground to stand on

I came into this journey at a turbulent time, when I felt groundless and was searching for a ground within. Holding my birth chart for guidance, you helped me find that ground. The connection was always there with you, and as the stability in our relationship developed, I was able to delve deeper — to reach out to my depths and find the abandoned child who needed tending. She appeared into my consciousness through the dreams, and soon I was able to hold her in ways that healed the disconnection.

The unremembered child was being remembered, and it created shifts in my external life. The maturation process I encountered in the two years of our work was immense. As I was led deeper into enquiry by the temenos you held, I realized how trauma hides in the shadows and somatises pain. My connection and trust in my own body became part of the process, and I experienced an intimacy that healed my soul.

I am ever grateful for this encounter of our souls, and I continue to hold you in me in more ways than one.

 

I learned to stand up for myself — and to hold myself gently

When I first came to therapy with Reshma, I didn’t even know what therapy was — it took me months to realise it. I had been on a self-development path, working with coaches and looking for something deeper. My intuition told me to work with Reshma, even though I didn’t think I had “issues” to work on.

I had just learned we were moving to the US. My move to Dubai had been hard, involving depression, and I knew I needed support this time so I wouldn’t get lost. I couldn’t have imagined the disruptions that were coming — my husband’s move to the US , COVID and my own move.

Early sessions gave me courage to explore areas of my psyche I had never noticed. My dreams began — vivid, fascinating images that opened whole new worlds. About 16 months in, Reshma challenged me: “What are we doing here, going round and round?” That moment deepened my trust and invited me to explore topics I hadn’t dared even with myself.

Through my move to the US and repeated disruptions, therapy helped me see myself in a different light. What began as work on my business became work on my whole self — as mother, daughter, friend, wife, and coach. I started witnessing my childhood from a new perspective and giving myself the compassion I’d never known. Having Reshma’s presence in that sacred space was the best thing that happened to me during those years.

As life’s waves kept coming, our sessions and my dreams helped me shift old narratives and patterns. I began to see the “characters” in my life as souls helping me evolve. For the first time I had someone I could trust with my inner thoughts, even the hard ones. Slowly I learned to bring even my deepest fears into the work.

Over time, I saw why my experiences were unfolding as they were. I learned to stand up for myself. For the first time, I told myself: I am OK because I have me. That strength came through our therapy. I still need the relationships in my life, but I see my own role clearly now and don’t hide behind fear. It’s a new way of being, and I’m still learning to be comfortable with it.

The regular calls, the dream journals, and the constant inward reflection all helped me. Reshma once told me, “Show up for yourself every session — even if you’re sick, take the call from bed — but show up.” That strong boundary became powerful for my results. I learned to face discomfort, to stand up and meet it. Her strength, gentle voice, and symbolic tools helped me shift perspectives. It was intense but sacred.

Looking back, I hold myself differently now. I judge myself and others less. I can step back, see experiences symbolically, notice what’s triggered, and give myself space. I’ve spoken up in relationships — something I never did before — and the quality of my connections is so much better.

I know my journey isn’t over. Difficult experiences will come. But now I can recognize when I need help, ask for it (still hard!), and use the tools I’ve gained to process.

From Victim to Victorious

I write this with deep gratitude for your work with me — for enlightening me and helping me face the shadows I couldn’t see or feel.

When I entered therapy, I was feeling helpless, like a puppet in the hands of fate. My daughter was being rejected in marriage proposals one after another, and it was both heartbreaking and disappointing. Being in a position without control was extremely difficult for me. My inner child was deeply wounded, and healing her was one of the main reasons I was pulled to therapy.

The early days of therapy were very tough. My suppressed wounds came to the surface and I began to have conflicts with the very people who had once hurt me. Instead of feeling better, I initially felt more disturbed and often thought of leaving. It was hard to cope with those feelings, but gradually, I began to feel more settled and started looking forward to our sessions.

Over time, I moved from feeling like a victim to feeling victorious — from complaining to finding courage, from control to empathy, from blindness to vision. These changes didn’t come easily, but they brought immense awareness. I still see the old patterns resurface; my need to control and my struggles with boundaries continue, but now I meet them with far greater clarity and compassion.

Weaning off therapy wasn’t easy either. Letting go was hard, and I still feel the withdrawal at times. Yet I now feel more confident to handle life — to see issues with wisdom, accept differences, and surrender rather than control.

Thank you for walking this rough road with me, for holding me so I could see the light. And the greatest gift of all has been my acceptance of my son’s challenges — something I once resisted but now meet with love and peace. I will always be indebted to you for this.

 

Facing the darkness, I found the light — and the freedom to live the life I always wanted

When I first began therapy with Reshma, I was skeptical and reluctant. Though I couldn’t explain it logically, it was not easy to show up those days. After a few sessions I felt I wasn’t alone in what I was facing. Looking back, I see that my hesitation had less to do with doubt and more with defiance — I didn’t want to explore how I’d arrived here, because I was afraid it would reveal mistakes I’d made along the way.

Those defenses came undone early in our sessions, and with them came immense relief. For the first time, I could simply breathe and be where I was, without all the invisible baggage I’d been carrying — the belief that I couldn’t fail, that I had to keep everything together. From that point, I began to trust the process.

There were difficult days when I questioned whether therapy was working. I was used to instant results — the quick outcomes of coaching and self-improvement — but this was different. When I was in the abyss, Reshma didn’t try to pull me out. She stayed with me there. It was painful — I had to face my own ugliness, my desperation, my sense of being utterly useless and at the mercy of fate.

Reshma’s way of being felt warm and genuine. Even when I doubted whether she knew what she was doing — because I kept finding myself back in that darkness — I eventually realized that my suspicion was the very thing that needed to be seen. My lack of trust, my old ways of control and resistance, were what I needed to face.

Letting go of the old me — the one defined by roles, expectations, and fear of failure — was hard. Facing truths that once crushed my self-esteem became the foundation for something new.

I feel freer now— free to live the life I want, free to retrieve the joy that was always inside me. I’m discovering new things about myself every day, and I can finally see the sun shining again.

Thank you, Reshma for your immense patience and for guiding me back to myself