A Catalyst for Change

 
 

MAE Y in conversation with Pankhuri Sehgal

Pankhuri Sehgal is a social entrepreneur passionately working to promote social and emotional learning tools in India. She is an advocate for the need to connect education to emotional wellness and leadership in the Indian educational system. She has also worked on issues that include intergenerational prostitution, LGBT migration, and disaster relief in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. 


MAE: Pankh, thank you for joining me today—to share a tsunami-kizuki story from your life; these are the big events or occurrences that you feel have shaped you to become who you are today.

PANKHURI: I’m so happy to talk with you today, Mae. I appreciate the opportunity to share my story. 

When I was a young girl, to everyone in my outer world—my relatives, my school, my community—I was a happy, energetic, chirpy kind of girl, but inside I was very sad and lonely. I had moments where I was very “anti”—anti-society, anti-parents, anti-rules. I was frustrated with the patriarchal structure I lived within. When other kids were having fun and feeling carefree, I was already questioning things but had no one to go to for the answers. I was mature for my age . . . and growing into a rebel. 

When I was just 12 years old, I attempted suicide. Now when I look back at that time, I still don’t know if I wanted to end my life or if I was seeking attention because I felt so lonely. I just know that I felt disheartened and sad and completely misunderstood. I felt that there was no point in living. Today I have a loving relationship with my parents, but back then I felt that they didn’t know me or know how to handle me. That night changed everything for all of us.

MY: What were the kizukis—the insights and awarenesses—that came to you from that experience, whether they came gradually or suddenly?

PS: I came to know that we cannot love life without loving ourselves. Eventually, we must come back to ourselves. It starts with me. It starts with you. Love is what we need and what we live for. 

MY: I imagine when you attempted to take your life, you were in despair. To make the move from despair to love is a faraway journey. I’m guessing that it didn’t happen overnight. What were some of the steps or moments that you had leading to self-love? 

PS: When I attempted suicide, only my parents and I knew. There was—and still is today—much taboo about such things in India. “No one should know about it,” my parents said. Of course the opposite is really true. Being open and vulnerable is essential to healing, and so I’m grateful to bring my story to light now.

Along my journey, I’ve had many teachers and mentors. I’ve done a lot of inner work, including working with my inner child—not only to heal but to move toward awakened consciousness. Now I see that everything happens for a reason, and my attempted suicide story has been one of the greatest teachings for me. 

MY: In Japan, there’s a saying: Kusai mono niwa futa-wo suru. This means, “If it’s smelly, put a lid on it.” Put it aside so no one can see it—or smell it. I think this is something that the Japanese and Indian cultures have in common.

PS: Yes, I see that common thread too. Today in India, we’re moving in the direction of understanding and valuing mental health. But at that time, I saw a psychiatrist only once after the event. My parents didn’t have the resources, tools, and support to really understand what was going on. And, in that way of “putting a lid on it” as you described, I didn’t see a therapist or counselor for ongoing help because they were afraid that the truth would come out. They loved me, but they were constrained by fear.

MY: I had a parallel experience to what you went through. My first tsunami, which was my parents’ divorce, happened when I was fourteen—an age when, before adding in any life-changing events, everything is already shaken up. I, too, went to see a psychiatrist, just once. I was so full of hatred because none of the authorities (parents, professionals) could help me. I was looking for answers in places and with people who didn’t have the answers in the way that I had hoped. 

Because of the nature of the divorce, my parents couldn’t be there for me emotionally. My dad said to me, “It’s your life, so why don’t you go and live it”—which sounds really cold coming from a father to a 14-year-old daughter, but at the time, I took it to mean that he trusted me. It helped me to begin to trust myself and to start making decisions in my life.

In your situation, it sounds like you were empowered after the incident. I’m sure that there have been periods of that searching, but in a sense, you were empowered right away because you made your point:  You’re a force to be reckoned with. No one—not your parents or society as a whole—could ultimately control who you were becoming. So you embarked on your journey to become who YOU are—not who you appear to be. Not how your family and friends see you. Not how society sees you. But who you are from the inside.

Was there a memorable moment that led you inside?

PS: There wasn’t a specific incident or moment that I recall; it was more a gradual dawning. For a long time, as I shared earlier, I felt hurt because those I was closest to didn’t understand me. This hurt turned into depression. I felt lost. 

I think that kids feel lost for so many reasons—due to neglect, abuse, or feeling unworthy of attention and love for any one of a million different reasons. But the lost child can always be found again. We can remember who we are. 

For me, I began to recognize and embrace my intuitiveness, which has always been very strong. I could feel that the power comes from within us. I could feel this power inside of me. And I could feel that you have it in YOU. You are the one who has to take charge of your life. The moment you do that, you are unstoppable. You are the force. These are some of my kizukis that happened over time.

I stopped shutting down my intuitive mind, and I became unapologetic about myself. This is certainly the opposite of staying silent and hidden. I’ve never been someone who would be easily put into a box. After that incident, I became more expressive and more willing to take risks in what I said and did. I became more courageous. 


MY: In the West, that’s what they call integrity or alignment: aligning to yourself, to your true heart. And then, for the first time, you’re not living a life where you’re trying to please someone else or trying to please society by abiding by the rules. But you’re really prioritizing, first and foremost, your life

That is so hard to describe sometimes, because it can come off as a lot of selfishness. And in a world where selflessness is hailed and selfishness is condemned, it can get all upside down. But really, the kind of selfishness that points to your intuition or points to who you are in the becoming—that integrity with the sacredness of who you are—is really the beginning of everything good. 

It’s actually the beginning point where you get so deeply imbued with love that you can’t help but want to help others and love them. You can’t help but want to share what you know and do your work. It brings alignment to your purpose.

PS: Yes, I understand. We’re talking about healthy individualism. As you said, in the West, it’s about individualism. In India, the focus is community and socialism. But I do feel that at a deeper level, this is not a real distinction. Self and other are the same thing. So, until and unless we go inside, and come to know this sacred union of self and other, we cannot be whole. 

MY: I think that relates to the stage I’m calling the Cocoon in my book. When the big waves swept through my life, I needed to go within. I needed to touch base with myself. I always knew, of course, that my friends were there, my family was there, society was there—and sometimes knocking on the door, just waiting for me. But, beyond all else, I needed to connect with my own soul. 

Did you have a phase where you were detached from the world? Where you needed to find the individuality of your journey?

PS: That’s a great question. I would say that disciplined meditation, which is a fairly recent practice for me, has provided a kind of healthy detachment. In the silence, I began to realize how privileged I am, in so many ways—even with the personal struggles I’ve had. Sitting with myself, I began to feel truly empathetic toward others. 

Unless you sit with yourself and turn toward your own struggle, you cannot do full justice to someone else’s struggle. I feel that one has to give that time and space. In that sense, meditation has been a cocoon of transformation for me.

Outside the cocoon, as the founder of Let’s Celebrate Foundation and MUST Education alongside my affiliation with Challenge Day’s Be the Change (www.challengeday.org), I work with underprivileged communities and in schools. The programs I run are designed to raise emotional intelligence and social responsibility in teenagers for them to step into their leadership journey. As they come to know and love themselves, they are empowered to take the path of their own choosing in this lifetime. 

MY: In our first conversation together, you said that whenever you’re communicating with someone, you always need to touch upon the heart first. You talked about this being a key to becoming a catalyst for change. It’s never about trying force change through rules or from a structure imposed from the outside. Change is invited when we can honestly say, “I have gone within and talked to my heart. And only from here can I talk to your heart.”

Has your work with schools and communities been a natural flow, coming from following your intuition through your teens and twenties—and from following your heart?

PS: Yes, it was very organic because I have always wanted to do that type of work. My first job was with an advertising agency, and I took that position because they put me on a project where I would be curating entrepreneurial stories from remote villages in India. So that is where I started my career—listening to the stories of others that included their dreams, failures, pain, and triumphs. 

Moving forward, I worked for one year in a community that was practicing intergenerational prostitution. There are other projects I’ve worked on, such as with LGBT groups. Right now, I am working with some underprivileged communities, such as rohingya refugee community. Inclusivity is my guiding light. I know the privilege and gifts that I have, and I just want to share those with the people who are not so privileged in this society.

MY: Say more about the drive behind what you do today? What gives you the power to do your work? Do you feel that it’s primarily your experiences of being a survivor of suicide and having responded to that ultimate need: the need to discover who you are and empower who you are? 

PS: That moment when I tried to end my life was the turning point, but it has to do more with how acutely I feel pain—my pain, the pain of others, pain in general. I feel it to the point that I need to go out and work and reach people.

Working with children and adolescents is my passion. This stage of development is a very vulnerable stage. I believe in creating more equitable societies; people having equal access to opportunities. My mission is to help create places—community centers, schools, and other sanctuaries—where children do not feel lost, alone, or bullied to the point where they don’t believe that life is worth living.

Mae Y + Guest Pankhuri.Sehgal-yoga quote.jpg

…there is so much profoundness in the little things,

and that if you take care of the small things you don’t have to worry about the big things.

– Pankhuri Sehgal

MY: Yes, just because we experienced a lack of support and empathy in our own upbringing doesn’t mean we need to pass that on to the next generation. But there is a transmutation that needs to take place if we’re going to change things up for the next generation. 

So, Pankh, when you close your eyes and go within to the part of you that is still in-the-making, what do you feel or envision there?

PS: Although it’s an ongoing work, when it comes to my journey of self-healing, somehow I feel at peace there. There’s no anxiety. I feel that I’m just a vessel for helping others to be in touch with their own self and with life. 

I feel that there is so much profoundness in the little things, and that if you take care of the small things you don’t have to worry about the big things. Often the things that we feel are big are actually not. The small things are what give meaning to your life, and if you take care of them, you’re “good to go” with the so called bigger things. 

MY: Do you have some favorite little things?

PS: Self-acceptance is one of those “little things.” We have acceptance for so many other people, but often not for our own self. But I would say this: Just by being there for your own self—accepting and caring for your own self—you’re taking care of the entire world. 

As more and more people take care of themselves, sincerely and deeply, I feel that’s the biggest change. There is a positive ripple effect arising from true self-care that can’t be fully measured. Perhaps we don’t need more changes to happen beyond that change; that alone can take care of so much of what ails humanity.

MY: When we were closing our eyes and tuning in to who you are in-the-making, all I could see is light. You are a powerhouse! 

PS: I see that you are light as well. We are a reflection of each other.