American psychologist Dr Edith Eger is a holocaust survivor who, at the tender age of 16 was made to dance for the SS officer who had just sent her parents to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. And she did dance, and she suffered immeasurably, but she survived, and she has lived a full, deeply meaningful life. So much so that at the age of 90, she wrote her first book The Choice, which sold more than a million of copies, became a New York Times bestseller and even got on Oprah’s radar. The Gift, which is the book I’ve read and drawn tremendous inspiration from in these tumultuous times, is her second book, written when she was 92. It contains an abundance of wisdom! She shares her accumulated insights on how to survive in 12 short lessons (too short at times) that you can’t help but feel uplifted by, while marvelling at the strength of the human spirit. 

The 12 lessons that Eger shares provide a pattern on how to live a life of freedom, regardless of one’s external circumstances. Three truths in the book illuminated my way ahead so brightly that I feel compelled to share them. I was intellectually and emotionally mesmerised by her rich definitions of hope, expression and freedom. 

I am yet to come across a definition of hope as elegant and resonant as Edith Eger’s in The Gift. More broadly, the pithy but profound expressions in her writing should feature in communication textbooks as triumphant exemplars of communicating with impact. 

Edith Eger argues that freedom is a state of mind, not an external circumstance. It is a choice that we get to make every day. She explains that what helped her survive the inhumane conditions in the concentration camp was the free world she created in her own imagination, a world where she was happy, danced, loved, cooked with her family and partied with friends. A world no SS officer could ever take away. A world where she “could”, and “did” where she “chose”. 

But to choose freedom we need to feel hope, Eger argues. She defines this as twofold: an awareness of the transience of suffering combined with a curiosity for the future. In her own words hope is “…the awareness that suffering, however terrible, is temporary; and the curiosity to discover what happens next. Hope allows us to live in the present instead of the past, and to unlock the doors of our mental prisons.” 

Eger also explains the difference between the mentality of a survivor and that of a victim. “Victims ask, ‘Why me?’. Survivors ask, ‘What now?’”, she says before reminding us that suffering is universal and inescapable but “victimhood is optional.” “To choose hope is to choose life.” Eger’s punchy aphorism penetrates deep within me, because I know that I am at a precarious crossroads where I am faced with a choice between the road of hope or the road of despair. 

Edith Eger encourages us to seek to express the inner and most hidden parts within us. She warns us that repressing self-expression leads to depression. Once again, she summarises it in a simple and beautiful expression: “the opposite of depression is expression”. In her book Eger explains that for years she tried to escape the anguish she had felt in Auschwitz by burying her story and the feelings attached to it deep inside her until she saw that her secret inadvertently hurting her children. So she learned not only to express her pain but to grow from it. “You can’t heal what you don’t feel”, so “feel so you can heal” she reveals and invites. I absorb like a sponge this truth she finds so easy to articulate. 

Eger’s captivating philosophy of compassion and self-compassion culminates in her candid and poignant analysis that we all carry a Nazi within us. That part which judges harshly, which victimises and feels no compassion but only hunger for domination. Eger believes that we are born to love but learn to hate through socialisation. Freedom consists in making the choice to love when faced with the option to hate. 

I will leave you with the ever-more relevant, astute, humane and compassionate analysis of the world and human nature that Eger leaves us with in her Afterword to The Gift, which she wrote in 2021, post-pandemic. Never has it been more relevant than today. 

“All over the world, a resurgence of fascism looms. My great-grandsons stand to inherit a world still gripped by prejudice and hate, where children yell racial epithets on the playground and carry guns to school, where nations build walls to deny asylum to fellow humans. In this state of fear and vulnerability, it’s tempting to hate the haters. But I feel sorry for people who are taught to hate. And I identify with them. What if I’d been born a German gentile instead of a Hungarian Jew? What if I’d heard Hitler proclaim, ‘Today, Germany, tomorrow, the world’? I, too, could have been a Hitler Youth, a guard at Ravensbrück. We’re not all descendants of Nazis. But we each have a Nazi within. Freedom means choosing, every moment, whether we reach for our inner Nazi or our inner Gandhi. For the love we were born with or the hate we learned.”

As well as being a stepdad and dad, my husband also happens to be a black man. Every year for the last 15 years I have wanted to buy a Father’s Day card or mug for him that depicts a man who looks like him. But so far I have never found one, despite living in multiracial south London. All cards, mugs and other Father’s Day merchandise I have seen depict smiley or silly-looking white men’s faces, often straight blond hair. There are no cards, mugs or notebooks with images of smiley and loving black or brown fathers. There is no merchandise that reflects the wonderful father that my husband is. Which makes me sad.

What this absence also signals is that in our culture, black men are most certainly not associated with being good fathers. Report after report tells us that black men are more likely to grow up in single-mother households, to be randomly stopped by the police, to be incarcerated for crimes they did and did not commit, and to suffer mental health challenges than white men are. But being good fathers is not an attribute that black men are celebrated for. And this is a problem. A problem we can only rectify by shining a light on generous black fathers like my husband who tear down stereotypes like old wallpaper off a wall.

My husband, a second-generation immigrant with West African parents, grew up fatherless from the age of 7. He felt loved, even spoilt by his father while he was around. In fact he says that his father showed a somewhat unique adoration of him as his youngest son that in hindsight made my husband feel uncomfortable for its unfairness to his siblings.  The far- reaching systemic racism of the 1970s drove his immigrant father out of Britain. One day he was simply gone, leaving his family behind, without saying goodbye. This was the day that defined the kind of father my husband was going to be. A father who sticks around, who loves deeply, who protects, who provides, who supports, who challenges, who encourages and who invests all that he has in his family and children, irrespective of whose biological genes they carry. A father who goes to school concerts, sports days, school fairs and football matches, who creates customised birthday games from scratch to support his children’s passions, who prints out planning sheets to aid his sons’ exam preparation, who praises efforts regardless of outcomes, who instils compassion more than competition and who believes in his children’s goodness.

I met my husband more than 15 years ago through work and our connection was so strong that we quickly became friends. One day he made a statement that revealed a part of his nature so sensitive and perceptive that for a moment I forgot to breathe. “I would like to meet Nestor (our older son) because I know that until I have met him, I haven’t really met you.”

When Alex (our younger son) was a baby, my husband spent hours gently dandling him in his arms, nap after nap and night after night, until he fell asleep. An effort that I wasn’t prepared to match for it was too strenuous and monotonous.

At a dinner conversation not long ago, while discussing being a bystander in hypothetical street altercation situations, a topic of sustained interest to my teenagers who are trying to figure out the boundary between defending others and self-protection, my husband quietly assured them that he would give his life for them if he had to (after exhausting all other possibilities, of course!) Simple. Straightforward.

I scan the variety of Father’s Day gifts depicting goofy or solid white fathers, having been lucky enough to be raised by one myself, and in my mind I slot in the missing images of good fathers of different colours who too deserve a mug with their facial features on it. A mug that will subtly challenge social stereotypes and send an unconscious message of hope to the next generation of boys of colour, helping them to cultivate trust in their future fathering. I reflect on the day when being a good father will no longer be exclusively reserved for white dads but will be an identity trait shared by fathers of all races. And that makes me smile.

The loving rebel is a revolutionary who demands to be heard, who grapples with dismantling the barbed-wire fence the dictator has put up to surround a pulsing heart that contains thousands of repressed stories and important truths. The rebel loves everyone and everything, passionately and wholeheartedly. She not only wants to tear down the barbed-wire fence, but to put up a dance stage instead, where everyone who has been timidly hiding at the sides of the fence is now invited up to dance frivolously, gracefully or playfully to the soft rhythm of joy-inducing songs like Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds.

The dictator, filled with a fear of getting hurt, quashed, dismissed or eliminated, dismisses, quashes, eliminates and hurts me first.

The war inside me is between fear and love. The law of my current existence prohibits them from being in the same place at the same time, from peacefully cohabiting. Where there is fear, there is no love and where there is love, there is no fear.

The fear of being violated, humiliated, of being unsafe, of losing those I love, my livelihood, my freedom or even my life for speaking my mind goes very deep. It is a shipwreck, anchored to the bottom of the ocean by the millions of intergenerational tragedies that weigh it down. Generations of Bulgarians before me loved someone who lost their freedom or their life for speaking up during the five centuries of Turkish Ottoman tyranny and the almost half-century of Communist repression. You speak up, you die. This has been the belief that we Bulgarians have internalised at a cellular level. It has also been the subject of many a reflection and proverb, as this quote from my own journal at the age of 17 attests: “those who speak up before their time, spend their life in very uncomfortable places.”

In Bulgaria and probably across the Balkans, the formula for survival has been anchored in submissiveness, in maintaining silence and rendering yourself invisible. There is no place for expressions of love in that space because love is expansive, it celebrates, it is free, all-embracing and, most of all, it bravely looks you straight in the eye. When your gaze is down, love can’t make the eye contact it needs to grow.

Love is courageous and wise. It too has been passed from generation to generation of Bulgarians going as far back as to when the world began.

“God is love and love is God”. My mother channelled this millennia-old wisdom, crafting the internal compass that now helps me navigate my way through this confusing world. Love brings meaning to anything and everything, to suffering and joy, past and present, birth and death.

But I wake up every day not knowing who has gained advantage in the war inside me. Is it the silencing dictator or the loving rebel? Today, 18.05.2024, it is the loving rebel! I embrace those I adore, I write, I kiss, I caress, I care, I act, I dream, I hope. I feel strong, purposeful, optimistic. I navigate what feels like sensual energy seeking to burst out of me. No depressing global, national or local news can crush me. I am a conduit.

Today, 24.05.2024, the dictator has taken over. I am starved of sleep, submerged, if not paralysed, by worries, insecurities and anxieties. I am a vessel of despair. My eyes are burning, my voice is faint, my chest is tight, a fire alarm is waiting to go off or, wait… it is already blaring but I don’t know where to evacuate to. And even if I did know, I don’t have the energy to do it.

The silencing dictator inside wants to force-feed me because he knows I feel empty when he is around. When he takes over the narrative in my head, I fill myself up with chocolate, Nutella or any other ultra-processed food I can get my hands on. I feel immobilised, exhausted, clumsy, heavy. The more I eat, the more the despair engulfs me.   

When the loving rebel takes over, I am propelled to exercise, run, plank and stretch, to eat my five-a-day, to hug, to look up at the sky, to listen to the birds singing and give way to the ants. I feel nimble, elastic, bouncy, receptive and alert. No amount of Swiss or Belgian chocolate can tempt me.

Will this war quietly rage inside me for the rest of my life? I ask myself wearily sometimes. “It probably will”, replies the soft, wise, well-informed voice inside me, the one that has read some books and interviewed some experts “You will always carry the voices of love and fear inside you, but maybe the war between the dictator and the love rebel could be resolved”, adds another, more optimistic, even wiser, voice.

I feel curious and a touch sad that I can’t hope for a definitive win for the loving rebel. No victorious arm will be lifted by a sweaty referee, unleashing a triumphant roar from the exalted spectators surrounding the boxing ring.

So what does success and progress look like? Well – if I am being kind to myself – although it’s hard to accept, having awareness of these different parts of yourself is progress. Not suffocating the rebel with self-directed insults is even grander progress. Befriending the dictator and acknowledging that he arose from the deep anguish of the human ego, while negotiating his diminishing reign, would be a triumph.

Might this very act of empathy end the war inside? It’s up to the loving rebel to end the war by stretching her love that much further to include that nasty dictator who is so cruel, rigid and debilitating.

Hmmm… I realise that I have a long way to go. But at least I know where I am going and for now I feel grateful for that.

My heart ached hearing Mollie King break down in tears a few times on the radio, questioning her ability to continue because her body was so exhausted. She was in physical and mental agony for days, but she persevered and completed the 5-day race. King is one of many celebrities who have subjected their bodies to extraordinary pressure over the years, like Greg James completing his self-punishing Gregathlon – cycling and climbing the UK’s highest peaks in seven days – or Eddie Izzard completing an astonishing 27 marathons in 27 days across South Africa.

As proud as I was of King’s phenomenal achievement, I could not help but wonder: why do we value this self-torture of our bodies? Why do we reward what verges on body self-abuse? Why is it an accomplishment to drag your body through what you thought was impossible?

A very plausible answer for me is that we simply do not value our bodies nearly as much as we value our minds and thoughts. We are raised to constantly override what our bodies are telling us. For example, early-starting schools force us as teenagers to ignore our bodies’ need to get more sleep; our bodies’ need to cry regularly is quashed by well-meaning parents assuring us that there is nothing to be sad about, or that “crying is for wimps”; or our bodies’ need to rest frequently is overridden by gruelling work schedules and ambitious weekend sports or other extracurricular activity schedules.

Rachael Haylock, an embodiment educator whose work involves helping people reconnect with their bodies as a source of wisdom, explains in her course “Embodied Wisdom” that centuries ago humans imposed a false delineation between the mind and the body, placing cognitive intellect on a pedestal, while neglecting the intellect contained within our bodies. Perhaps this started with Descartes proclaiming the supremacy of the mind with his famous quote: “I think, therefore I am”, which Haylock argues should be inverted to “I am, therefore I think” to ring true. I engaged with Haylock’s work after I had disconnected from my body to such an extent that I felt like a walking head, with severely reduced capacity for emotion or tears. My recognition that I was heading towards a burnout led me to Haylock and to practices aimed at helping me reinhabit my body.

Not being connected to our bodies does a lot of damage to us. Too often we are unaware that we repress many of the emotions that reside in us physically. Thus, they end up controlling our lives invisibly, triggering panic attacks or even diseases if repressed over many years. We consume junk food without being attuned to the immediate energy drain it leads to in our bodies. We undertake cosmetic surgeries and procedures, sometimes causing irreparable damage to parts of our bodies. Ultimately, the abled-bodied among us often don’t appreciate sufficiently how miraculous our bodies are just to function in the way that they do, all the while berating ourselves for being too slim or too fat or too old or too ugly.

I was deeply moved recently by CNN anchor Sara Sidner’s reflections on her journey through stage three breast cancer. Amidst her body being pumped full of chemo, Sidner realised how unhealthy her relationship with her body had been for years. In the course of her cancer treatment, she was finally able to grant it the respect it deserves.

“From the time of puberty I have disliked the way that my body is.” Sidner reflects regretfully. “I am thinking of this body that I have mentally tormented. I need to apologise to it…I was really neglecting myself and that makes me sad that I was taking advantage of this body and not giving it back what it needed,” Sidner reveals through tears. “What kind of idiot does that?”, she concludes harshly. It turns out that the vast majority of humanity does exactly that. We neglect our bodies because we wrongly take them for granted or see them as some kind of alien entity that carries our heads. So many of us, myself included, struggle to sense our bodies and the wisdom that they carry for our benefit.

“Just be kind to yourself,” advises Sidner, going on to offer her own lessons in self-care, which include drinking water, going for a run, working out, letting yourself be mad and letting yourself cry. These precious lessons, shared by someone who can no longer take their body for granted, benefit us all. After all, we must remember that it is our bodies that make it possible for us to stay alive, and therefore we owe so much to them, do we not?

Mindful body scans, meditation, drinking pure cacao, dancing, singing, drawing, doodling, candle breathing or painting are some of the practices I have learned to use to reconnect with my body, and I wholeheartedly recommend them.

I now allow myself to dream of the day when the challenges we put ourselves through to raise money for good causes will be anchored in compassion for rather than competition with our bodies. These challenges would include meditating for five days, or immersing ourselves in communities to ensure that every member drinks enough water every day for five days, or challenges that rely on alternating physical exertion with activities that make us laugh, or on giving out hugs to everyone (who wants them) for five days or even producing a massive piece of artwork. It strikes me that the real challenge we face today is not putting our bodies through inhumane suffering but being kind, attuned to, respectful and nourishing to them and to those of others around us.

Since children are a window on the current global zeitgeist, perhaps this vote indicates the emergence of a prevalent global belief that IWD is either celebrating the wrong thing, is unfair to men or to women or is simply ineffective. This may well be the case, but I am here to illustrate evidentially that if IWD didn’t exist, we would hardly ever hear about women’s gender-related issues in the news. And if women’s perspectives are missing from the news, they are most certainly missing from the radar of those in power, be they political or business leaders. IWD is by no means perfect, but it is the only existing megaphone we have at our disposal to amplify the multiple impediments women face, as well as their achievements and the work left for society to do to close the gender gaps between men and women globally.

Some right-wing groups and religious communities often argue that IWD celebrates the wrong values: instead of celebrating what has traditionally made women unique, such as their mothering and caregiving nature, it celebrates what makes them more like men. Others (often men) feel upset on men’s behalf, finding it unfair that international men’s day (IMD) is not celebrated nearly as buoyantly as IWD. Many don’t even know that IMD exists. Are women better than men after all? No, they are not, they say, so why celebrate them?

Some left-leaning groups and feminists believe that celebrating women one day a year is offensive, as it does not give women’s fight for equality the heft it deserves. Women deserve to be honoured every day, they say, not be paid lip-service once a year (often by self-serving corporate brands), while being violated, discriminated against and/or harassed the rest of the time. Certainly some of the students in The Economist Foundation’s live lesson deemed one day utterly ineffective, suggesting that the celebration should be extended to a month. Others argued that the day should be dropped altogether because it puts women, who are on the periphery of power, under the spotlight to resolve their own discrimination problems, which feels unfair.

Wouldn’t it indeed be remarkable if women were championed and honoured every day of the year as men are? It really would. Personally, there are few things I want more than the equitable treatment of women and gender parity across power structures. Regrettably however, we live in a world where women’s perspectives (and achievements) are honoured a minority of the time in the news (1 in 4 online news contributors being women), in films (1 in 3 speaking roles go to women), in music (1 in 3 Grammy winners this year were women), in AI (1 in 7 AI engineers are women) and in business (1 in 10 of Fortune 500 companies’ CEOs are women).

Women remain on the sidelines of society to such a great extent that over the course of 2023, according to AKAS analysis of GDELT, only half a percent of the online news articles globally referenced gender-related terms 1 that are directly relevant to women. However, on 8 th March last year, the proportion of gender-related articles of relevance to women increased sevenfold. While still marginal, the news coverage of gender-related issues rose to 3% of all articles that day. This meant that on IWD, 1 in 33 articles mentioned important gender-related topics instead of 1 in 222 throughout the year.

If you are presented with a choice of learning about the unique challenges that women face in society and their achievements once a year vs. rarely hearing anything about women’s uniquely underprivileged position in society and how their lives can be made better, which option would you choose? For me there is one option only. #I #choose #IWD.

We have to operate within the world we live in and in this instance, this means paying close attention to what is said/showcased on International Women’s Day. Although a speck in time, each International Women’s Day creates a miniscule dent in the ignorance about inequality in the news, making it a catalyst for change. The question I think we should be asking ourselves therefore is not whether we should be celebrating International Women’s Day but how to create more moments of heightened awareness like it.

I didn’t know this man but his death breaks my heart. It breaks for him and for the anguish that is left behind for generations to come, starting with a young boy who will now stare at an empty void with sorrow instead of at a father with awe. How much pain must this man have carried for him to choose this untimely tragic end?

I feel much sadness and compassion for boys and men today. I realise that the patriarchy has cast a very dense shadow not just over women, but over men too. Middle-aged men are more likely to take their own life than any other group. Men are three times as likely as women to die by suicide. 

The existing social norms do not allow boys or men to show who they really are, to be vulnerable, to feel broken. Men often lack the community of friends that holds women together in times of turmoil. They are taught to be strong and to fix, not share their problems. There is a much greater expectation on men to provide for those around them. Their success is measured by what they have achieved in life, not by their personal qualities such as kindness, nor by how connected they are to themselves, those around them and the world at large. Men are expected to fight, to compete, to build fortresses, not to create harmony or spread love within their walls. And some simply cannot survive this extraordinary pressure, the isolation, the bravado that doesn’t really belong to them. 

I wish that we encouraged men to share their feelings, without judging them for being vulnerable or weak. I wish we assured men that we would love them and remain physically attracted to them when they cry, feel lost, confused, or scared or when they don’t make much money. Instead, when a man shows vulnerability and softness, women typically and quietly lose their respect and physical attraction to them. Women seem to want it all: a sensitive man who is also strong and powerful, because powerful is sexy and sensitive not so much. The proliferating porn industry reinforces the image of the macho, overpowering, unapologetic, brutal hulk. It is mainly this image that feeds the imagination of generations of young men and women, precluding any chance of sensitivity being perceived as sexy. 

Often when men retire and have more time to co-create a home with their partners, their wives end up feeling irritated by their husband’s constant presence and secretly wish them out of the house during the day so that they can reclaim being in charge of the household without any man meddling in domestic affairs.  

If we are to dismantle the Bronze Age-old patriarchy, societies need to help men shed the weighty armour of expectations of strength, prosperity, self-sufficiency and stoicism that is so painful to carry! We must bring symmetry to the changing gender roles: empowering women to become equal breadwinners while also inviting men to become equal home-creators and primary caregivers without feeling threatened or being judged as effeminate or dull.

For more on this topic please read this article I co-authored with the brilliant therapist and dear friend Linn Martinsen, where we examine from various perspectives the shadow that the patriarchy has cast over men and women.

I lost my first (signed) copy of Caitlin Moran’s book “What about men?” while travelling and reluctantly bought another one, unsure whether the book was worth paying for twice. That was until I read the chapter titled “The Pornography of Men”, which made my head explode while breaking my heart. For someone who is neither a porn connoisseur nor was raised in a fully digital era, the chapter was both truly revelatory and utterly shattering. I cried after reading it while making a next-steps list in my head with regards to my teenage sons (I lamented gen-z’s brutal immersion into the world of pornography that robs them of the romantic notion of love and sex that many gen xers took for granted growing up). Honestly, these 20 pages alone made buying the two copies of the book indisputably worthwhile. 

“The Pornography of Men” is anchored in the candid reflections of a 21-year-old man, Sam, who, following much therapy, had recovered from an addiction to porn that started when he was 10 with the following google search: “Bug bum sexy woman naked”. Watching porn had become the normal thing to do, while having real sex had become weird for him and a swathe of boys of his generation (an observation that floored me).

At the end of the chapter, he concludes that schools need to be speaking to kids, as young as possible, about the damaging impact of early discovery and consumption of porn.

A few insights stood out for me:

• Our sex imagination is literal and is shaped by the images we feed it. It starts as a blank slate… until it isn’t. We cannot unsee what we have once seen. Images involuntarily wire our brain and impact our sexual preferences. 
• Our children’s imagination about what sex should be like develops off the back of the images they absorb.
• At any point in time, a child is only ever 30 seconds away from discovering the most brutal examples of porn. Also, kids are great at bypassing wi-fi parental control settings. 
• It’s much harder to find intimate porn that depicts loving sex between two people than it is to find extreme porn of all kinds on the internet.
• The social media feeds of men/boys and women/girls are completely different. The algorithms feed them different worlds. According to Sam, a boy must have lived in a cave not to have come across and consumed porn.

“Basically, watching porn pretty much destroyed my dopamine-release mechanism and it’s taken the last few years and a lot of work to get myself right again…My generation are the first to get this crazy access to a lot of sh*t, online, and it’s really noticeable that there is never really a chilled option to pornography”, reflects Sam at 21. “…I just want to go to schools and say, “Porn. Ask me all about it. Sex education in this country [UK] is all wrong. It’s too late…”

As for Moran, she illuminates heart-wrenchingly who the sole beneficiary of this calamitous situation is (and what the consequences are for the consumer): the porn industry that robs millions of children of healthy future sex lives. “…Now you need this multinational porn company in your sex life. Now, some millionaire tech guy is in bed with you…”

So what should we do as parents? I think first and foremost we should have honest conversations with our tweens, teens and with ourselves… and keep having them over and over again. We should watch high quality romantic comedies (yaaay!) with our kids to offer a world of intimacy that feeds their imaginations (especially if they complain that these films are boring). And/or, worst case, we should mention ethical porn sites (some are mentioned in Moran’s book) to our teenagers in the hope that it is there that they click first to satisfy their natural curiosity about sex.

In recent years I have come to understand that being sensitive is an asset. It propels you to empathise deeply with others and to search for answers and solutions to uncomfortable aspects of reality. Last week, reading Minka Kelly’s harrowing memoir Tell Me Everything, I came across an assessment of sensitivity that made me realise that sensitivity can be the force that drives people to take action. According to Kelly’s drama teacher Janet, quoted in the book: “Sensitive people change the world, and the rest don’t give a damn”. This crystallised for me that being sensitive is a superpower. To make a positive difference in the world you need to really care about it and feel deeply for it. Sensitivity is the fuel in a car, the paddle of a canoe, the sail of a boat.

So, if you are around children or adults who are sensitive, let them know that this is their superpower. Celebrate it with them and consider offering a bit of your time to discuss seemingly pointless aspects of reality that they care deeply about. That would be the best and most empowering present you could give any sensitive human being.

My mum, who was instrumental in shaping my worldview, was an atheist. She used to say that she didn’t believe in God, but she believed in Love. For me Love is God. It’s the smallest undetectable particle - smaller than an electron - that we all share. 

Here is my little poem about love, born in a dark hotel room in New York City that I shared with my loved ones. I wrote it during the early morning hours when I lay awake waiting for my guys to wake up on our summer holiday.

What is Love But…

What is love but transcending biology

What is love but defying chemistry 

What is love but embracing the unknown

What is love but accepting being alone 

What is love but submerging in tears 

What is love but smiling through pain 

What is love but welcoming impermanence 

What is love but savouring your breath 

What is love but capturing moments 

What is love but letting them go 

What is love but allowing for errors

What is love but a dance in the flow

What is love but a quiet surrender 

What is love but dissolving in air

What is love but stripping the self

What is love but praying in hope.

“Surrender, Surrender, Surrender” 

Here it is: the whisper of love…

“We are in defence of the human being”, warns Georgi Gospodinov, author of Time Shelter and winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize, in a recent FT Weekend article. Back in 2019 he argued that if politicians and economists read more literature, the world would be less beset by existential crises. Presumably reading fiction would help them better understand and empathise with people and therefore make better decisions for humanity as a whole. I wonder if this argument should be extended to the handful of AI experts in the world who are shaping our future existence.

On the last day of every year, I typically make a number of resolutions for the year ahead which I invariably fail to fulfil. Humbled by my past failures, this year I only made one: to start meditating again as a way of balancing my abundant outward-facing, goal-orientated energy with my inward-facing, gentler energy that I tend to neglect or disperse. 

With that resolution in mind, I was suitably intrigued when my sister Maria suggested that we go on a weekend retreat of sound relaxation and conscious movement in the small Bulgarian town of Apriltsi. A unique way to start the year, I thought, combining sound, movement, meditation, relaxation and yoga. A curious collection of activities, none of which, bar yoga and meditation, I had practised before. 

Challenge your stereotypes about people 

I was feeling cautious if not a tad trepidatious at the prospect of interacting with a bunch of strangers who were steeped in self-development. I had formed a stereotype of yoga practitioners and retreat-attendees as excessively introspective, often disappearing into themselves - individuals who have taken the mantra of “only listening to what your body tells you” to the extreme, leaving no space for listening to the needs of others. Instead, I met a very diverse group of considerate people who were anything but too introspective. The gender balance and disparate backgrounds of those taking temporary shelter at Trinity Retreat centre fascinated me: unusually for such events, half of the participants were men, many but not all being part of a couple. I was told that this atypical gender parity contributed to the harmony and balance that the group displayed during the retreat. 

The tone of the retreat was set the minute we got into the organisers’ car to share the journey and spare the earth a few emissions. Gergana Daneva, the owner of Wild Calls, the event company behind the retreat, came across as exceptionally warm and dynamic. She wore her ego lightly, and had a bubbliness worthy of a glass of freshly popped champagne. Gergana was bouncing with enthusiasm, supported by her partner Filip who humorously defined his role as “the guy who carries the bags”. Over the weekend, I learned that, among other things, Gergana had been a Member of Parliament and that her partner, a business owner and triathlon organiser, was now studying to be a paramedic. As a couple they came across as refreshingly supportive of one another, uninhibited by restrictive social norms and generally a pleasure to be around. 

We arrived at a big country house which, depending on the levels of your need for comfort and luxury, could either be described as rustic or basic. I settled on rustic and fell in love with the mesmerising view from the room I shared with my sister. 

The main feature of the house – a key draw - was its yoga studio – which was as modern as could be. A spacious, inviting, intimate, well-heated space with large windows looking out onto the garden, and a wooden floor of dark oak. It was there that my sister and I met the 13 or so retreat participants and the two instructors for the first time. 

Everyone has a story to tell if you care to listen 

My previous experiences at numerous events have been bound by a common pattern – that there is invariably one person who comes across as very intense and/or is disruptive. An individual who attracts attention disproportionate to their positive contribution to the group. So, that evening I started scanning the room, assessing each participant for their potential to be the intense and disruptive one. Much to my surprise, no-one matched that description. 

The people I met were from vastly different walks and stages of life. I spoke with a sustainable energy specialist, two dermatologists and an artist, two actors, a fitness instructor, a lifeguard and a Red Cross volunteer, a manager in the construction industry, business owners, a student, parents, couples and single people. Although barely anyone asked me any questions (unsurprisingly, since in Bulgarian culture asking people questions about their life is frequently seen as prying), I learned fascinating and inspiring stories about many of my fellow retreaters. What bound us all together was our kindness and openness to learning from the world around us. 

The story that sticks in my mind most is that of a man who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) at the age of 21. The disease had viciously attacked his body and stripped him of a great deal of his mobility, yet despite being told by doctors that there wasn’t much he could do to help himself, this man had completely changed his lifestyle and food habits with great results. Miraculously, in the last 12 years he had not had a single flare-up of his MS. To achieve this, he had stopped drinking alcohol, smoking, eating red meat, sugar and all processed foods. To this day he remains uncompromising about his diet and lifestyle, and against all odds, it is paying off. I felt inspired. 

The two instructors - Katya and Alex - a couple, with a background in theatre and seemingly reflective by nature, invited us to go inwards, to explore our deeper nature. They even proposed that we ate in silence at breakfast, lunch and dinner. This did not happen because the group was yearning for connection. Whether it was a post-pandemic need or the result of being a particularly extrovert group, I do not know. Either way, the conversation flowed. 

Alex was in charge of the sound meditation sessions while Katya led the movement-based exercises and yoga. Both encouraged us to listen to our bodies and to only do the sessions that we felt comfortable with. That felt hugely liberating and calming in equal measure. Fellow retreaters kept dipping in and out of sessions, which usually started later than indicated on the schedule, but no one seemed to mind. I felt a slight emotional distance from the teachers but it was subtle and constructive. The dynamic worked. 

Have the confidence to say “no” if you are feeling uncomfortable 

Once or twice Katya asked us to make eye contact with others who were doing the movement exercises. That felt hard. I felt shy, uncomfortable or at times even lonely when in search of a gaze no eyes met mine. But I persevered, cutting through my discomfort like a sickle through corn. 

In another session Katya asked us to pair up with the person next to us and give each other a massage. This felt excruciatingly uncomfortable because for me, being massaged and massaging someone else requires a degree of closeness and familiarity which in this instance was absent. As lovely as my massage partner seemed, I had only met him and his equally lovely partner the day before. The whole experience felt awkward, but once again I persevered for fear of upsetting the man I had been partnered with. I suspect he felt as uncomfortable as I did, and that I would have been doing us both a favour if I had politely declined to participate. 

Learning from these two mistakes, I summoned the courage to say no the third time I was faced with an exercise I did not want to do. We were invited to go on a mindful walk which involved being blindfolded in the woods and led by a walking partner through mud, obstacles, streams and hills. At that point the risk-averse, middle-aged woman in me took over and chose physical safety over expanding my trusting skills while risking breaking a limb. Saying no to this practice felt right and the act of assertion also felt good. Consequently, my sister and I enjoyed a tranquil walk through the picturesque winter mountain woods with our eyes wide open. 

Make a note to get out of your head more often 

After a year of intense writing about gender inequity in news and other socially significant topics, I had felt trapped in my head, saturated with too much purpose and not enough spontaneity. So my one goal for the retreat was to get out of my head and step into my body. And getting out of my head I did, particularly during the movement exercises in which Katya guided us in movement through beautiful ambient ethno-Balkan music, much of which had been composed by Alex. We were encouraged to let our bodies move freely, without restraint. I danced with every fibre of my body, much as I had done for decades until a few years ago. I relished this freedom of expression, ignoring my occasional pangs of worry about how I /my body was being perceived by others. 

Value connecting with others, not just with yourself 

When asked about our goals for the weekend, most participants set themselves goals of discovering something about themselves that they didn’t know; of learning something new; of experiencing a deepening relationship with themselves. 

Interestingly, however, what I and many others realised was that the thing we enjoyed most during the retreat was connecting with others. In a closing circle on the last day, each participant was asked to share what they valued most about their experience. Rather than talking about their self-exploration, most emphasised how much they had enjoyed connecting with others. Hearing new stories, joking around, eating in company and getting to know new people, even if you were never going to meet them again, had felt like such a gift to us all. 

Laugh… it’s your deepest connection with the universe. 

The one thing I will remember forever from these 48 hours of my first-ever retreat is the shared laughs. I seemed to giggle endlessly with my sister, just like we used to when we were younger - pre-losing Mum, pre-divorce, pre-Covid, pre-losing Dad, pre-war, pre-gaining weight, pre-so much. I shared laughs with those around me during mealtimes, during walks and even, mischievously, during exercises. Surrounded by kindness, goodwill and nature, relaxed in the knowledge that my children were being looked after by the most solid man I have ever known, I just let go of all the pain and solemnity I had been holding on to for too long…and just laughed. 

Reflecting on the meaning of laughter in the last hour of our shared retreat, a dermatologist, who emphasised his deep relationship with science, shared the following unexpected wisdom which I have been pondering ever since: “When we laugh, we connect with the quantum energy of the universe”. 

So… is there a laughing meditation class I can join please?... 

“Tired ..., a hungry hyena, I enter the office ... with a moustache on, tarted up and ready for battle, without a penny in my pocket ... at this hour…I was promised salaries but all I see are beds…”, I listen to the degrading song just released on the internet about Lena Borislavova, previously Head of Cabinet in the former Bulgarian PM Kiril Petkov’s government, who withdrew from politics following a sustained media attack on her for an alleged affair with Petkov. The song unveils three important sexist stereotypes about women in Bulgaria, and to a greater or lesser extent globally: that women sell their bodies to get ahead in life while their intelligence is ignored as an irrelevance; that women who strive for positions of power are overly ambitious and aggressive “hyenas”; that women will use all means necessary, including sex and corruption, to ‘crawl’ out of poverty. Predictably, the song also attacks what is seen as the female protagonist’s main asset - her appearance – the denigration of which would lead to her ultimate annihilation.

This song could have not been written about the former PM (an equal participant in the alleged affair) or indeed any other man. It could only have been written about a woman. Why? Because of the asymmetry in how men and women are judged: attributes which are perceived as positive in men are deemed negative in women. So whilst it is admirable for a man to show ambition in seeking a powerful job, it is shameful for a woman to do so. Whereas men are judged on performance and achievements but never on appearance, the judgement of women rests far more on appearance, especially sex appeal, than on potential or professional achievements.

Although the song’s narrative has plumbed new depths in its weaponizing of women for political gain and its vulgar expressions of sexism, none of its messages are new when it comes to Lena Borislavova’s portrayal in Bulgarian news media. This has provided a window onto Bulgarian society’s belief system about women and their role in politics or other public spheres. In 2022, when news coverage of the scandal of her alleged affair with the then PM Petkov eventually drove her out of politics, I was taken aback by the unfiltered abuse she was subjected to in the media, referencing this in my latest report From Outrage to Opportunity, which was released globally at the end of last year and covered in many leading publications globally.

A portrayal analysis of 24 of the highest-ranking Bulgarian news articles on the topic on Google between 15 th June and 29 th August, conducted by AKAS, unearthed that the media had viciously attacked Borislavova but not Petkov. Moreover, the attacks were not anchored in political arguments but were rather of a personal nature. 

58% of the analysed articles on the alleged affair contained a sexual reference to Borislavova, 33% made reference to her appearance and the same proportion described her in derogatory terms. One article bore the headline: “Seduced and abandoned. The fate of much trash”. Others referred to her as pushy, fiery or an ambitious brunette. A major Bulgarian newspaper ran an article that included this particularly damning statement: “There is a Bulgarian saying: ‘She washes his feet and drinks the water.’ It refers to women who tend to men in power, and instead of being looked after, are turned into pathetic concubines.” Regrettably, only 38% of the articles gave voice to Borislavova herself. As she reflected on her decision to withdraw from politics, “Being involved in politics in Bulgaria has its price”.

According to a 2017 Eurobarometer survey on gender equality across all 28 EU nations, Bulgarians rank second in believing that gender equality has been achieved in leading positions in organisations, and fourth in believing that there is no problem with the way women are represented in media and advertising.

Yet, unlike men, women in Bulgarian news are often portrayed in a traditional, submissive, and offensive light. They are also marginalised in coverage. My team’s analysis of the GDELT global news database uncovered that in 2022 men were 3 times more likely to be referenced in Bulgarian news than women (compared to twice as likely globally).

The answer to this seeming conundrum of perceptions of achieved equality and the gender unequal reality lies in the pro-male biases and traditional values that define the belief system of Bulgarians. For example, across all EU countries, Bulgarians are the most likely to believe that a man’s most important role is to earn while a woman’s is to care for her family. Bulgarians are the 7 th most likely to believe that women lack the necessary qualities/skills to hold positions of responsibility in politics.

For change to occur, it is crucial to recognise that, contrary to popular belief, the coverage of women in news media is far from equitable. Even experts defending Borislavova, like the psychologist Ani Vladimirova, referred to her in interview on Nova TV as “the girl” while the song’s creators were “the men”. This unconscious choice of words immediately positions Borislavova as a less authoritative figure in the eyes of society. The good news is that 82% of Bulgarian journalists believe that their journalism should promote tolerance and cultural diversity. What better way to do this than to follow this simple but powerful advice offered by prominent British journalist Mary Ann Sieghart on the question of tackling gender bias: “…Whenever a journalist is writing about a woman, he or she should always ask themselves, ‘Would I have said this about a man?’ So when gratuitous comments on what women are wearing, what they look like, their hairstyles, their voice are made, ask yourself, ‘Would I say this about a man?’, and if the answer is no, then delete them.” We must delete quite a bit of what we are habituated into writing about women in news coverage, before women like Borislavova stop being forced out of the public arena and our lives become more equitable and fair.

I was a child when Gorbachev came to power. Many (older) Bulgarians who know me would argue that I should not complain about my life then. And I don’t. I was among the 1 to 3 percent of Bulgarians who were allowed to travel. By the time Gorbachev came to power I had lived in three continents and four countries. I was privileged because of my dad’s work as a diplomat. I am deeply grateful for these opportunities. Yet… while I was abroad, I had only seen my friends from the international school I attended outside of school setting once, and my dad had to ask the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for permission for me to go to the social event, accompanied by 2 young diplomats supervising. Had it not been for Gorbachev I would not have tasted the intoxicating joy of having free speech, free thought and free movement. I would never have studied in England, had my multi-racial family and a job that is anchored in freedom of expression. I am deeply grateful to Gorbachev for the Perestroika and Glastnost he started which toppled a rotten regime keeping everyone suitably repressed and mediocre. Yes, it was painful to find out about the millions of killed people in Russia and Bulgaria during communism; to go through hyperinflation, empty supermarket shelves and 3-hours-on-3-hours-off electricity regime, but boy, was it worth the pain.

Jada Pinkett Smith did not stand behind her husband after his misjudged attempt to defend her, and the incident failed to elicit a perhaps much-needed apology from Chris Rock. As an alopecia sufferer, Jada Pinkett Smith should not have had to endure a joke drawing attention to the hair loss caused by her disease. But, as we have unequivocally established in recent weeks, Will Smith certainly should not have slapped Chris Rock for making that joke either.

Self-sabotage

One of my own most punishing memories of self-sabotage concerns a weekend city break which my then partner, now husband, had organised for us as a surprise getaway. It was in the early years of our relationship, when the wound from my divorce was still open and raw. My partner had planned every detail meticulously, taking great care to create a feeling of extraordinariness. His only intention was to help me feel special and loved. Crushing rose petals while lying on a soft bed in a cosy hotel, I instigated a major argument between us, the essence of which, ironically but unsurprisingly, I can no longer even remember. I do remember, however, his dismay and sorrow at the unfortunate turn of events, the thought of which makes me choke on tears of regret even all these years later. What I did not understand in that moment of ruining the love of my life’s romantic gesture, was how little I thought I deserved it in the first place. My self-worth was so low that unconsciously I had decided that I was going to put a stop to this beautiful moment because it was not fair for me to feel special or happy. It simply wasn’t right.  

Seeing Will Smith sabotage his biggest night (from a professional perspective), was heart-wrenching, especially in view of how much damage his momentary lapse of reason caused not only to himself, but to so many around him. The evening turned into one big moment of loss - loss of well-deserved attention for the Oscar winners and the Williams sisters; loss of the feeling of safety for Chris Rock and others in the room; loss of joy for all those present or watching the Oscars; loss of reputation for Will Smith and the Oscars Academy.

In his memoir, Smith frames his mega-successful career as one long apology to his mother for his childhood failure to defend her when his father was violent towards her. Smith has openly condemned his violent father yet tragically, on the biggest night of his career, when the limelight on him could not shine any brighter, Smith destroyed his triumph by becoming the very person he has spent his whole life defining his identity against - his father. 

The shadow

There is a term in psychoanalysis which encapsulates our psychological struggles - the shadow. Each one of us carries their own shadow which consists of fragmented parts of ourselves that we dislike or hate outright and have therefore dissociated from, in the hope that by doing so they will cease to be part of who we are. Perhaps in Will Smith’s case, part of his shadow may be his own violent side which he so despised in his father. In my case, it was my feeling of inferiority, of being unlovable, that manifested in aggression. 

The biggest challenge that our shadows present is their pernicious ability to take over our behaviour at the worst possible time and to keep doing so until we become conscious of and forgive the aspects that we hate about ourselves, inviting them back into the tent of our whole being. Only when we admit that our flaws exist does the shadow’s grip loosen, allowing us to navigate our behaviours in a healthier way.

However, integrating our shadow into our being is as hard as can be (as I am learning from experience) - a life’s work, many counsellors say. I have been lucky enough to have counselling which has helped me become more aware of some aspects of my shadow and accept that inside me there is a bully, a victim, a rescuer, a perpetrator, an adult, a child: “that I am in everything and everything is in me”, to quote the powerful words of Hazrat Inayat Khan. This awareness helps me reduce (although not eliminate) the times when my amygdala, that part of our brain that responds to threats, is highjacked by my shadow, resulting in impulsive and destructive behaviours. I have learned that I have to always make space for my shadow, to acknowledge its existence so that it does not need to erupt to make itself heard.

Forgiving

As a feminist and a passionate proponent of non-violent conflict resolution, I have tried hard to fully condemn Will Smith for his unacceptable violent outburst. Yet I cannot. I cannot because I think that there is a self-saboteur, a bully who can turn on others or on ourselves, a rescuer and a victim in us all. This could have happened to anyone. While Will Smith, who is showing great remorse for his action and has resigned from the Academy, is rightly being reprimanded for what he did, I would be very sad if his one action on that night turns out to have destroyed his career. If we deny a second chance to those who trip up on their shadow once, will we ever accept that we are all human? And if we are so unforgiving of our flawed nature, what chance do we have to ever heal?

“Who knows whether you would have done as well in your life had I not been saying that? Perhaps this provided the motivation you needed,“ my father had speculated, half-joking and with a subtle smile on his face.

I wonder if it indeed provided the motivation I needed. And if so, at what cost? I will never know whether my motivation to achieve was prompted by a desire to earn my father’s approval; or to prove him wrong; or whether my wings were in fact clipped by the feeling of insecurity his words evoked in me, my doubts about my value as a human being preventing me from achieving more.

I recently read a BBC article about Rafael Nadal’s harsh uncle, whose tough love as his head coach is seen as instrumental in the shaping of Spain’s 21-time Grand Slam champion. Nadal’s paternal uncle was ruthless at times, not even allowing Rafael to rehydrate during training in the scorching Mallorca heat if he had forgotten his water bottle at home. Is this level of extreme testing of resilience necessary for extreme success? Apparently it is, according to Uncle Toni, who professes to love his nephew dearly.

When I reflect on my own life, I realise that I owe the enduring connections and friendships I have fostered throughout my life to my mother’s voice in my head, which tells me that I am a nice person, a kind person, that I have a lot of potential and a bright future ahead of me. Conversely, whenever I have dented or fractured a relationship, it has been from that place inside me that feels “less than”, contrary, inferior.

I wish there were a parallel universe where I could observe what would have happened if both my parents had motivated me through positive parenting. Who would I have become? Would Nadal still have won 21 Grand Slams if his head coach had been supportive of the softness in his personality, rather than training it out of him? What would happen to my children’s motivation and education if all their teachers held a positive bias, instead of a negative one - noticing their efforts and counting the steps forward they make rather than the steps back?

I do believe that tough love i.e. the act of challenging someone’s limits to help them expand their potential - is essential for human growth. But in the absence of a parallel universe shining a light on the right balance between “tough” and “love”, what I choose to believe is that “tough” is helpful and healthy only when it is enveloped in unconditional love. That unconditional love which carries a fundamental acceptance of the intrinsic value of the person in front of us, emancipated from any outcome, be it achievement or failure. The unconditional love that manifests in authentic positive affirmation, affection and compassion. 

In a world riddled with negative bias, I choose to count the little steps forward, to praise, to “big up” those around me, rather than put them down. And when I let myself down, which is not uncommon, when my negative sentiments and judgements override my love, I pick myself up and try again. The benefits of achieving, of pushing ourselves forward must outweigh the psychological cost of the discomfort inherent in pushing against our limits. Surely this can only happen if we marvel at the progress and the effort more than we dwell on the setbacks and the imperfections, right?

Golden opportunities to ask our parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles deeper questions about their inner world or their past traumas are frequently squandered, whether through fear of prying or simply being more attached to sharing our own stories than listening to theirs. But our personal growth, wellbeing, sometimes even health, rest partly on asking these deep questions and receiving truthful answers in return.

The journey I have taken over the last few years through my family tree has uncovered traumas but has also made me much less judgemental and more forgiving of human weakness. The further back I went, the richer the variety of trauma-inducing behaviours I uncovered; behaviours I had previously judged others for. It was strangely cathartic to find out about the variety of human ‘sins’ that lurked somewhere down the line on both sides of my family tree. Immersed in the grief, fear, regret, and anxiety of my ancestors that suicide, loss of loved ones, abandonment, rejection, greed, and cruelty caused, I was able to trace my own fears back to the traumas of those before and around me.

At the same time, I was elated to relive the bravery of some of my ancestors, whose immense courage culminated in them sacrificing their own lives for the freedom of others. The stories of love and devotion to loved ones, of generosity, forgiveness, and resilience uplifted my soul. In the words of Hazrat Inayat Khan “I realised that I am in everything, and everything is in me.” And this realisation that I carry within me not only the grief and shame, but also the triumph and love of those who went before brought my judgements tumbling down like autumn leaves.

I learnt from genealogist Galya Dimitrova that “Knowing our past carries unique understanding and acceptance... It also helps us to forgive, to move forward and not to pay for the mistakes of previous generations by repeating them.”

Our children’s growth and happiness then, their ability to lead meaningful lives, rest partly on our ability to share our traumas and the lessons we have learned from them. But only if this is approached from a place of love, forgiveness, and acceptance, rather than bitterness, judgement, and victimhood. “Once we’ve neutralized the charge we carry in our body, we can take forgiveness outward.”, advises the renowned inherited family trauma expert Mark Wolynn, author of “It Didn’t Start with You” in an article in Psychology Today. He advocates a daily exercise of developing gratitude for what we have and as a way of counteracting our all-too-human negativity bias. “It's important to celebrate the positive experiences in our life. Feelings and sensations of positive experiences actually change our DNA.”

People frequently say that time is the greatest healer, but my recent realisations lead me to beg to differ. What I have learned is that it is not time that heals the past, but the courage to be open about it, the ability to be vulnerable, to accept the dark storylines within oneself and others, and the ability to forgive mistakes. I have drawn strength from my ancestors’ resilience and courage in surviving tragedies and have seen how life has ultimately improved for every subsequent generation. So, as I struggle with the post-festive blues, it is this awareness that brings me calm and joy. It is the thought of ever expanding and more inclusive perspectives that nurtures my gratitude for the present and my hope for future generations’ fulfilling lives.

This book prompted me to write down my memories of my parents, grandparents and anyone in my family tree who has impacted my story. In doing so, I was shocked to discover how patchy my knowledge about my family was. Glaring gaps made it impossible for me to put together a coherent narrative. I was lucky enough to be able to turn to genealogist Galina Dimitrova for help. Dimitrova’s superpower is not only her creative resourcefulness and tireless perseverance in looking for sources, but also her profound humaneness and non-judgemental approach to her work.

Together we created my personal ‘traumagram’ – a family tree listing the past traumas experienced by each ancestor and family member. I realise now how important it was to build the trusting relationship that we developed. As we peeled away layers of ignorance about my family history, Galya was able to contain my experience with compassion and care at moments when the discoveries proved taxing.

Interviews with my relatives unearthed not only the devastating refugee experiences I have previously discussed, but further secrets and prejudices my parents faced: unbeknownst to me, my mother had been a divorcee before marrying my father, making her a “less than perfect” candidate for him in his family’s eyes. Looking at the family tree, I am struck by a pattern of divorce on my mother’s side. I conclude that her failed first marriage must have caused my mother much shame as she chose not to divulge the fact of it to either my sister or me. Unfortunately, despite hiding this to save us from a similar fate, the pattern repeated: both my sister and I married younger men, just as my mother had done, and we too ended up divorcing them, unaware that we were repeating a pattern.

Looking at my traumagram, I saw my fears laid bare before me, lodged in the stories of previous generations. The patterns that emerged differed between the two sides of my family. But there they were: the stories of being abandoned through being sent away to another country alone, of being abandoned by a parent who committed suicide, or by one who loved another sibling more. I saw my fear of loss in the stories of lost children, of loved ones lost prematurely through war, disease or divorce.

There is growing acceptance of this concept of pain being transmitted down the generations through epigenetic markers. In a recent BBC article, Prince Harry linked his move to the USA to his determination to break the cycle of inherited pain for his children. In his words, “there is a lot of genetic pain and suffering that gets passed on.” His actions represent an attempt to stop that from happening, and he encourages other parents to do the same. Elif Shafak, in a recent interview with the Guardian about her latest novel “The Island of Missing Trees”, also revealed her belief in inherited pain: “…things we cannot talk about easily within families do pass from one generation to the next, unspoken.”

The work I did with Dimitrova, and through gathering the opinions and memories of my relatives, enabled me to construct a picture of my family history that revealed certain intergenerational patterns. It helped me distance myself from my fears and realise that many of them did not belong to me at all but to those who went before me. And it gave me hope that I can disrupt the cycle of pain and free my children from fears that do not belong to them either.

This blog post is based on an article I wrote which was published in Bulgarian by https://www.jenatadnes.com/

Stumbling across “It Didn’t Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle” by the renowned inherited family trauma expert Mark Wolynn, was the start of a journey for me that has transformed my outlook on life. The book absorbed me immediately – a case of love at first sight – and its every page, and the subsequent course I attended, proved an excavation tool for judgements I had formed throughout my life, methodically ridding me of them one by one: judgements I had accumulated about myself, my parents, grandparents, sister, aunts, uncles, cousins; about human genetics, and psychology. It has been a voyage of love, pain, awe, forgiveness and continuously expanding perspectives.

Mark Wolynn’s work, anchored in the latest research into epigenetics [the study of how your behaviours and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work] and in hundreds of case studies accumulated over decades, contends that traumatic events which have been hidden and not forgiven, become genetically locked within us and repeat through generations until they are teased out of the generational family constellation through awareness, forgiveness and reprogramming. Wolynn’s text reveals extraordinary and painful examples of traumatic events - rape, child bereavement, bankruptcy, adultery, etc - repeating through generations who, oblivious to the pattern, relive the pain and pass it on. As Wolynn explains: “We don’t come into the world with a clean hard drive. There is an operating system already in place that contains the fallout from the traumas that our parents and grandparents experienced”.

What does this mean for the 84 million refugees worldwide who were displaced at the end of last year alone and for their descendants? Prompted by Wolynn’s book, I undertook some genealogical research into my own family tree. I didn’t have to look far to uncover refugee experiences and have come to understand how these quickly became shrouded in prejudice, with profound effects that have echoed down through the generations, impacting even my own. In the family narrative, my father’s family bore the label of kind, poor simpletons from a small, insignificant Bulgarian town, while my mother’s family were painted more favourably, as educated successful professionals. This “less than” framing impacted my father’s outlook on his personal story and his self-esteem and was passed onto his children.

But my genealogical work created a new, more nuanced narrative which showed my father’s family in a brighter light. Both his parents were refugees from modern-day Northern Greece. I was surprised to discover that one of my great-great-grandfathers was an educated priest, while his son, my great-grandfather, was a teacher. On the other side, before having to leave his birthplace, my great-grandfather had been a landowner, owning enough land to provide well for his family.

One of the great tragedies that arises from being a refugee is that your personal history is wiped out. The social status acquired over centuries is destroyed in the blink of an eye. You lose not only your material possessions, security, and social identity but also your sense of worth. Immersing myself in my father’s ancestral story helped me restore a sense of familial worth for myself and for my children. But just as importantly, it has elicited a deeper empathy for the deep heartbreak and shattered self-worth of those who are displaced. What patterns of trauma, physical or emotional, will be linked to their experiences? And what can we, as members of a humane, functional society, do to restore their dignity and sense of self, and secure for them a future that overcomes the shadows of their past?

This blog post is based on an article I wrote which was published in Bulgarian by https://www.jenatadnes.com/

Hapsali’s standout quality is her admirable ability to share her vulnerability with her audience as a way of helping others. She regularly recounts her daily trials and tribulations on her social media - openly, seemingly unfiltered. It is this generosity of spirit that she so amply displays that makes people feel safe.

“I do feel things deeply and I am vulnerable. But it’s about sharing, and it's about being who I am. In the final analysis, seriously, what is the point of experience if you don't share it with others?“ Her passion for genuine human connection brings to mind images from Sean Penn’s moving 2007 drama “Into The Wild”. Based on a true story, the film’s central character reaches the same conclusion – that genuine human connection must be our goal. But unlike in the film, it is a conclusion that Hapsali manages to live out: following our zoom call she was heading off to offer support to a complete stranger who had reached out to her that day, having just lost her husband. This is a fate all too familiar to the author herself, whose own husband died in a car crash less than a decade ago.

Katerina Hapsali’s belief, that she particularly applies to women, is that inside of us all is hidden a warrior who is waiting to be honoured and whose voice can guide us to a place of empowerment if we only allow ourselves to hear and trust it.“There's this tiny little warrior in every single woman I know. You just have to give this warrior a chance. And then miracles can happen.“

With four successful published books behind her, Katerina Hapsali’s view is that being appreciated, and importantly, feeling appreciation are key drivers of empowerment. “Every single day we [writers] are building bridges in our writing. If my point has come across, if I've managed to build a stable bridge then people understand and appreciate what I have written, even if they don’t agree with it. Appreciation is extremely important in this writing world of ours.”

Despite life’s bitter knocks, Hapsali manages to embody a profound unadulterated optimism that is utterly contagious. When I asked her what helps her get back on her feet after life has dealt her a blow, her response filled me with hope: “It's this tiny little warrior inside of me and it's my faith in life and in a fundamental universal justice. It’s my faith that if I do the right thing, that if I persevere, if I don't give up, life will pay me back with more opportunities. At 46, I'm still extremely curious and I still have this strange and crazy notion that life is just starting to unfold and all these wonderful things are just around the corner.”

For once, it’s a contagion we can all welcome.