Dimple Bindra Of Yoga Can Heal: How journaling helped me be more calm, mindful and resilient
An Interview With Heidi Sander
Journaling helps to meet your goals effectively, increasing self confidence.
When your goals are in front of you and you track your progress through consistent actions, you increase your confidence in achieving them. It’s a reminder for our brain to see how easily through small steps we can accomplish anything we put our hearts and mind into. When you successfully achieve your goals, you are subconsciously sending a message to yourself “I am successful”.
Journaling is a powerful tool to gain clarity and insight especially during challenging times of loss and uncertainty. Writing can cultivate a deeper connection with yourself and provide an outlet for calm, resilience and mindfulness. When my mom passed on, I found writing to be cathartic. When I read through my journal years later, there were thoughts that I developed into poems, and others just provided a deeper insight into myself. In this series I’m speaking with other leaders who use journaling to become more mindful and resilient.
As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dimple Bindra.
Dimple Bindra is the CEO and Founder of Yoga Can Heal — Founded eight years ago. Dimple Bindra, through Yoga Can Heal & now DimpleBindra.com, works to provide lasting solutions to today’s health challenges. She has worked alongside multiple physicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, applying her training as a Yoga and Meditation Therapist and Medical Intuitive to help people heal both physically and emotionally. She is available to speak on mental health issues amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond. She has helped her clients recover from migraines, hypo/hyperthyroidism, vertigo, childhood trauma, and addiction. Dimple utilizes ancient eastern modalities, including intuitive medicine, yoga, meditation, acupressure, energy healing, and brainwave reprogramming. In short, her clients say that she is able to identify and treat issues an x-ray simply cannot reveal.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! We really appreciate the courage it takes to publicly share your story of healing. Before we start, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your childhood backstory?
I was born in Abu Dhabi, UAE in a middle class family. My dad followed sikhism and my mom followed 2 religions : hinduism and sikhism. Growing up just like any other kid, I never questioned my faith. I was just a typical average happy carefree girl and loved going to school. I was pretty popular amongst my friends and I just loved being surrounded by them. I used to do crazy things like dancing in between classes, as we waited for our teachers to show up. I also loved playing drums on our study table just out of boredom, creating upbeat energizing music. You can say that everyone thought I am silly and goofy and the attention I got made me “SUPER COOL”.
Then I found out that my father’s boss never paid him for the work he did, hence he was not able to take care of us financially. I was 10 years old at that time and all I thought to do was to lie to my parents and tell them how I did not like school and studying is not for me. I told them I want to work and help out my father. So I started selling cosmetics with my aunt and I used my network of fellow classmates and teachers to sell them avon products. I had to quit school eventually as our tuition was getting too expensive for my father. I told him that he doesn’t need to worry about me, but instead he could focus on getting my siblings educated as I can always go back to school whenever I feel the need to. But sadly that never happened. So I started working part-time at a beauty salon, which gave me experience and very little money. I got paid once in 6 months during Eid ( a festival that is celebrated by muslims all over the world). I did not know the value of money so whatever I received was fairly enough for me.
As I began working, I was exposed to a lot of men and oftentimes I was sexually and physically abused. I was not able to share this with my parents or family as that would cause a lot of shame. I knew I would be questioned so I decided to move on with the trauma. During those years, I did not have the experience to judge what is right or wrong but those incidents left a mark on my psyche. I quit school at 15 and we moved to New York City.
Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about journaling. Have you been writing in your journal for a long time or was there a challenging situation that prompted you to start journal writing? If you feel comfortable sharing the situation with us, it could help other readers.
After one year of moving to the states while coming back from work, I was abducted and was gang raped by 4 men. I could not express this tragedy & hid it from my parents. To make things worse, I tried to commit suicide as I couldn’t live in my body. Guilt and shame took over me so I thought overdosing myself on pills was the best solution. Surprisingly I ended up in the hospital and while I was on the hospital bed, I had a vision of my future self having a perfect body & my higher self told me to get up, don’t give up yet & showed me the path to yoga to heal myself. That’s when I decided to express my feelings through writing. Journaling helped me to release the memory that was haunting me. I didn’t have any friends as all of my friends were back in Abu Dhabi. But just through writing, I was able to share my feelings as if a friend is right next to me and I am simply sharing the story as is.
How did journaling help you heal, mentally, emotionally and spiritually?
I had to go to work 7 days a week, being an immigrant in this country and as a child when such a tragedy happened, I took the help of journaling to ease my pain. I would write about what happened to me on that night, & how I missed my friends who were in school while I was still working full time at the age of 15. All my day to day feelings of anger, guilt and shame were dumped in my journal. Over the years I realized how just writing it out helped my mental state by converting my negative feelings for myself & the people that hurt me to forgiveness. It helped me to live life from a different perspective. It helped me emotionally as well because I had no one to talk to so I would keep writing as if the book was hearing me out. Journaling also helped me to truly see things as they are. My questions were answered when I kept on asking myself, why did this happen to me? I understood that when we go through pain and trauma, just by bearing the suffering we can transcend it through acceptance. This was the wisdom that I received spiritually. So to answer your question, yes journaling was by far the best method that helped me mentally, emotionally and spiritually.
Did journaling help you find more self-compassion and gratitude? Can you share a story about that?
When I turned 25 I decided to move to California from Newyork. Oftentimes when we are upset at someone else we do not realise that we could also be at fault but we do not understand it right at that moment. So here is what happened — I had a teacher who really took a lot of interest in my life because my mom knew him since I was born. He was a family teacher for all of us but more so for me. He helped me deepen my meditation practice when I was soul searching. They say “IGNORANCE IS BLISS” so when I myself did not have the confidence to work on my childhood trauma, I clinged on to him by blindly following his teachings without asking any questions. Every weekend I would meditate for 7 to 9 hours & would journal my thoughts & experiences while sharing it with him on the phone. I was aggressive in my search & did not know that my attachment to attaining a spiritual goal will cause me to suffer in the future. He became the first person I would reach out to for any problem I had in my life. From asking advice to sharing my emotions, I found that his number was the most I would dial from my phone. I had no social life, just a worklife and my yogi life filled with hours of meditation. He kept on planting a seed in me that I don’t need a family, I don’t need to get married or have kids. I should only focus on my spiritual growth and how he can help me attain enlightenment. Because I had no self love at the moment, I kept on believing him. My dream at that time was to move to INDIA where he lived and just live the life of a yogi, through his help. Then one day I received a phone call from him. He said “You are ready to attain nirvana, it’s time for you to pack your bags & come to me. I have arranged a nice family for you to stay with. All you need to do is teach them yoga & you will be able to get your room and board covered”. I was so excited for this new adventure that I had been dreaming about and quit all my yoga related jobs & announced my departure at the clinic where I worked at. I was sad to let go of all my clients, students and patients but I knew to gain something, I have to lose something. I was so ready to leave so I hurriedly packed my bags, cancelled my apartment lease & was just waiting to fly out of the States. Then I received another phone call, this time from my teacher’s nephew, whom I knew very well. He told me something that shook my world. He said “ DO NOT COME TO INDIA DIMPLE. I JUST OVERHEARD UNCLE SPEAKING TO SOMEONE ABOUT YOUR ARRIVAL”. Nothing made sense to me. He said that his uncle has a plan to sell me off to a family for $60,000 USD, which is pretty decent money in India. At first I was so surprised & told him that if what he was saying was not true, I would kill him. For the next few weeks, I did my own research & called multiple people whom my teacher knew just to find out the truth. In the end, I did speak to one of the family members where I was supposed to live. I found out that he indeed was going to arrange my marriage to someone for money. I was betrayed by my own teacher so to overcome my feelings, I took a year off work. I kept on venting out on my journals about how stupid could I be. My anger was at the peak but each time I wrote how I felt, I learnt to have self compassion for myself. I learnt that I need to be grateful to the divine that I got saved from “A FAKE GURU”. I learnt to appreciate myself wherever I was in life. I learnt to never listen to another person if it does not resonate with my own intuition. I learnt that I could make mistakes & I don’t have to beat myself for it. Journaling taught me to forgive myself and be grateful for the life that I have today.
What kind of content goes into your journal? For example, do you free-write, write poems, doodle?
I do freely write my thoughts, my feelings and even my dreams. At times when I feel sad or frustrated, my journal helps me to release my emotions in a healthy way. And at times when I do feel good, I do write poems on love, on the divine and on ascended masters as a form of showing my gratitude for them. Some days when I am sad or if I worked a lot, I would start doodling just to see what can come out of me. The kid in me keeps drawing flowery patterns or sketches of nature. That helps me to become mindful of my life & embrace my thoughts.
How did you gain a different perspective on life and your emotions while writing in your journal?
I noticed as I start writing out my problems, the solutions to my problems are also written out. For example, if I had a verbal disagreement with someone, I will often start writing how I feel first then questioning why this happened and what can I learn from it. Somehow my solutions come up when my mind is quiet so by writing out my thoughts on what just happened it gives me a bird’s eye view on what truly happened. I also learned that when you sit with yourself and journal your issues, the other person is never at fault. They are just a mirror to how we feel about ourselves. Journaling also helps me to channel my emotions in a healthy way. For example if someone disrespects me, I have two ways to handle it. One is to start a fight with that person and question them on their behaviour. Second is to journal my feelings, forgive them and let it go as it’s not worth it for me to spoil my mood on someone else’s actions. So I often pick the 2nd option but “hey I am human so I do admit, sometimes my ego mind will push me to fight”.
How long after writing in your journal did you look at situations more objectively?
Definitely within a few minutes of writing it out, my heart opens more fully, I feel lighter instead of dwelling on my human emotions. This truly helps me to always live with the good within myself and release the negative in my journal. I also have a layout when I write. I start with my feelings. Then I will vent out & finally I will have the intention to transform it to some positive quality about that person. I try not to ever put my pen down unless I have resolved my feelings for the other person. I do this for myself as I do not want to stay with any negative lingering emotions so my way is to end on a positive note. This also helps me to detect sneaky, unhealthy patterns in my thoughts and behaviors.
In my own journal writing, I ended up creating poems from some of the ideas and one of them won an award. Do you have plans with your journal content?
Actually I do. I may one day add some of the material that I have written in my upcoming book “Hacking Your Mind Into Enlightenment” as I have a collection of client stories of healing, spiritual experiences and also some crazy mystical stories that I believe I would like to share with my readers.
Fantastic. Here is our main question. Can you please share with our readers “five ways that journaling can help you to be more calm, mindful and resilient”?
Well I can surely say more than what you asked for but here are the 5 ways it can help:
1 . Journaling helps to improve the psychological wellbeing in today’s world.
Effective writing specifically boosts our immune system, that is good news when the source of so much stress today is an infectious virus. If you start journaling your day to day stress of living in the new world of masks, you will learn that you are not alone. When you rant in a safe way or explore your inner conflicts you create a narrative, a sense that life continues and that it is moving forward, even in a time when you feel stuck. It’s very easy to feel that time has stopped, so something that shows the progression from yesterday to today to tomorrow can bring a sense of hope and momentum. This enhances resistance towards diseases (including infectious diseases), and creates spiritually and physically a more prosperous life.
2. Journaling helps to express our emotions in a healthy way.
When you start journaling you will see that it’s a way of disclosing emotions rather than stuffing them down, which is known to be harmful for our health. So many of us have secretly blamed or shamed ourselves that we haven’t shared with others, surging around our brains in images and emotions. Through writing, our pain gets interpreted into plain words that exist outside of ourselves. So instead of choosing hatred or guilt feelings for ourselves we can choose acceptance of how we feel.
3. Journaling helps to meet your goals effectively, increasing self confidence.
When your goals are in front of you and you track your progress through consistent actions, you increase your confidence in achieving them. It’s a reminder for our brain to see how easily through small steps we can accomplish anything we put our hearts and mind into. When you successfully achieve your goals, you are subconsciously sending a message to yourself “I am successful”.
4. Journaling helps you to be self aware about your triggers.
Do you know why you got into that argument or why you do not like certain tones, behaviours of some people in your life? It is because those are your triggers. A trigger is typically an event that enters your present mind, stimulates your adrenal glands, reminds you of what happened in the past, and activates traumatic memories along with a storm of emotions associated with them. This is typically not a pleasant experience and can be rather frightening. You may experience flashbacks, panic, fear, anxiety, rage, anger, confusion, or dissociation. When I worked with my clients I found that journaling in itself is very helpful and healing for many. Just understanding your triggers by identifying and listing them in your journal is a first step to help you get some sense of control over them and manage your reactions to them. You can work on yourself by contemplating on why you feel a certain way towards an unpleasant situation. Remember, journaling will not help you get rid of your triggers overnight. However, you can learn how to significantly reduce their power over you and control your reactions to them.
5. Journaling can help you reduce stress and heal your trauma.
If you are suffering from PTSD or any kind of trauma, journaling can be therapeutic and enjoyable. It can help you express your thoughts and emotions related to traumatic experiences. Denying what has happened to you is not a helpful response. Hence there is a lot of research that shows suppressing thoughts and feelings of trauma can compromise your mental state. If you keep narrating your negative story to friends or family, that declines your health so processing a stressful experience, and incorporating it into the embracing narrative of your life, is key. This will help to reduce stress which is advantageous to your health.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of peace to the greatest amount of people, what would that be?
If I get the chance to do a movement, I would start a movement where people will learn to build their intuition skills and tame their EGO MIND through meditation and journaling. This will help our whole planet to come out of any mental illness forever and there will be NO SUCH disease but only Love for Ourselves and The World. Who is with me?
We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them. :-)
I would be delighted to have lunch or dinner with Selena Gomez, because she admits that being vulnerable in sharing your story and seeking help is one of the most terrifying things in the world. It requires much courage and bravery. I admire her strength to create a world where caring for your mental health is democratized and destigmatized.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can follow me on -
https://linktr.ee/dimplebindra
https://www.instagram.com/dimplesbindra/
https://www.facebook.com/dimple.bindra/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dimplebindra
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued fulfilment and success with your writing!
