Jin kay honton pay hansi..Smilling through Pain!

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Jin ka deen pairvee kizb o riya un ko.
Himate kufar milay, jurate tahqiq milay.
Jin kay sir muntazire taighe jafa hain un ko..
Daste qaatil ko jhatak dainay ke taufiq milay..



……………............................…………………………………….Faiz



Changing our patterns of feelings and actions is hard. After all, we grew up this way, day after day. “Normal” is whatever we are used and “Healthy” is just a fantasy of the doctors and self help gurus. We laugh when the we ask “Is there such thing as a healthy family?”And yet at some deep unconscious level we know that there is such a thing as a healthy family, and it just frustrates us all the more.We grope around un the dark, floundering in our dysfunction overwhelmed by our guilt and shame and fear. We watch other people whom we think might be normal and healthy.

We imitate what we think they might do to solve the problem that’s bothering us, then we get even more frustrated and hopeless when it does not work out. Or worse, we may even know in our heads what the healthy thing is, but cant seem to bring ourselves to do it.We read parenting books and recovery books and “how to” books and have all the answers for our friends and colleagues . But when it comes to us, we cant seem to pull it off. This is because “knowing in our heads” is not enough. We must also have conviction in our hearts and our guts.Words cheap. Actions are what count.

Jab Ishq sekhatha hay adaabe khud agahi..
Khulthey hain ghulamon per israre shahenshahi

The biggest trap of all is is to be in denial. As the hijaab of denial begins to lift we get into recovery, the trap gradually becomes more and more visible to us….Tera elaj nazar kay siwa kuch aur nahi!We stumble through early stage of recovery like infants learn to walk. We fall down. We pick ourselves up again. We get frustrated and want to quit. We try again. Then more Traps become visible. We find ourselves tripping into stepping into fewer and fewer traps.


Karmak nadaan tawafe shama say azaad ho
Apni fitrat kay tajalizaar main abaad ho


Then one day we awaken and pinch our selves to see if we are dreaming. We check in with our feelings. “yes,” we say, “I like my life. I like my self!”

Stages of recovery

1. Stages of Oblivion

Ye baykhudi bay sabab nahi hothi Ghalib
Kuch tu hay jis ke parda dari hay


This is the typical long period in our lives when we are in complete denial (kufar) that we come from a dysfunctional family or that we have any addictions, compulsions or symptoms. We may be like Diana about our lives and relationships. We smile and say that everything is “fine”. We wear mask of codependency ---looking good on the surface but hurting inside( munafaqat). We may look unhealthy to others but be good at keeping others from giving us feed back. What ever our trick is for staying in denial ( Kufar), we are in denial nonetheless.Usually our lives start signs of strain and wear and tear somewhere between the agesa of 25 and 45, then we go into the next stage.

2. Crisis Management

Something finally snaps enough for us to identify that some kind of problem exists. Still in denial, though, we try to isolate the problem exists. Still pretty much in denial, though, we try to isolate the problem in our head. We try to contain it and define it as more limited than it truly is.Hasti kay mat fraib main aah jaayio AsadAalam tamam haqla e damm e khayal hay“My wife is unhappy. Oh, well, she just needs to get out of the house more often.”“My son is using heroin. Oh, well, he is just at that age when kids experiment a lot”“ I’ve been stressed out a lot recently. Oh well, it will pass as soon as I get this project done.”“I find myself getting interested in other men lately. Oh, well, I won’t say anything to my husband. It will go away.”

Each one of these statements, taken by it self, is not necessarily a big problem. But if we are in denial ( kufar). But if we are in denial about a much deeper family system issue , the problem won’t go away. In that case, we may seek outside help.We may go from one therapist to another, seeking one who sees the problem as limited the way we see it. We try to fix the problem with logic. We become excellent problem solvers. We make charts of and lists of behaviour and stay up late into night talking about problems with our partners. But the problem does not go away. We are in crisis, and we are doing crisis management, but the crisis does not go away. It has become Unmanageable .

3 The Recovery Decision.

Mujhay daraa nahi sakthi fiza ke tareeki
Meri sarshat main hay paki o darakhshani
Tuo aye musafir e shab khud chirage ban apna.
Kar apni raat ko daaghay jigar say noorani.

It may take months or may take years to reach this stage.This is the point at which we say, “My life has become unmanageable.” I need to admit that there is a deep-seated problem here that is not going to be fixed by some simple behaviour modification. I need help. I need to do some deeper therapy work.

Two things happen during this stage. First, we feel like failures and feel a lot of fear and shame. Second, as we share these feelings with others, the fear and shame and sense of failure begin to lift. We feel an initial burst of relief. We start to get better and healthier. Within a few months we realize that there is something inside us, our Little Child that needs to be allowed to heal. This takes us to next satage of recovery.4. Family of origin/Feelings Work

Ranj say khugar huwa insaan tuo mit jatha hay gham

We have seem few people, my self included, who could do this stage without professional help. At some point most of us have to do some Family of origin and feelings work in individual or a group therapy setting for this deep healing to take place.

Be cause this work must be done in a safe place; as some of it can be scary. The process of healing goes through the following steps in my treatment programmes.
1. We need to identify the wrongs that happened to us as children.
2. We need to have our feelings about those wrongs, not just talk about them
3. We need to embrace those feelings, i.e., let them become as big as they really were back then.
4. We need to share those feelings with others, not just talk about them with others.
5. We need to make a decision about our relationship with the person or people who hurt us and continue to hurt us.
6. Thenwe begin to heal and forgive. Not before.

Jis tarha rifate shabnam hay mazake ram say
Meri fitrat kee bulundi hay nawai gham say.


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