Tag: healing

đź“šNEW SERIES RELEASE đź“–

On By Mahvash K. M.In BookReading, bookworm, childrensbooks, kidlit, Kidsbooks, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment

THE HEALING SERIES 👧🏻👦🏽❤️‍🩹

Dear all,

I’m happy to introduce my new Healing Series for children ages 6 to 10. This has been a labour of love and grew into the current 4-book series when friends and family spoke of a vacuum in the children’s literature space – there were very few books which allowed painful, stressful events in the child’s life to be softened in the gentle flow of story-telling.

The Healing Series includes coping with:

  • Bullying
  • Suddenly becoming an older sibling to a new brother or sister
  • The loss of a parent (will be in stores in May 2025)
  • Parents’ separation (will be in stores in May 2025)

Traumatic experiences can initiate strong emotions and physical reactions that can persist long after the event. Children may feel terror, helplessness, agitation or fear as well as physiological reactions such as heart pounding, vomiting, or loss of bowel or bladder control. It is critical to identify when a child is feeling deep seated discomfort which they are not able to verbalize. Other overt behavioural signs and symptoms include acting out or withdrawing, nightmares, physical ailments, difficulty concentrating, clingy/separation anxiety, crying frequently, self destructive behaviour, academic struggles and loss of appetite. These are the most common, but the whole gamut of emotional and behavioral symptoms can be wide and varied. Basically, any behaviour that is not normal for the child should be considered a signal for help.

Consider these books, then, as a way of starting conversations with your child about events and circumstance that may be distressing them. Every story in this collection gently holds the child’s hand and helps them navigate the confusing, painful and daunting times that they find themselves in.

In our beautiful but imperfect world, I hope that these books through the magic of story-telling in the safe haven of home and family, help to protect and nurture the mental and emotional wellbeing of our children 🌸.

SRI LANKA: The books are currently available in most bookstores across the island
PAKISTAN: The books will be available at Liberty Books, Paramount Books and the London Book Company in a couple of months.
KOBO: Will be available on KOBO by the end of April 2025.

VERSE | WINTER WITHIN

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, mentalhealth, poetry, truth, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
Life goes on wrapped up in days 
Amd months and years 
And then something small, inconsequential 
Peeps out of a grainy abyss 
It emerges unshrouded, unexpected 
And the fragility 
That is also life, folds up 
The soft blanket about us 
And we feel the chill 
Of new news, the icicles
Of probabilities, plausibilities 
Pierce benumbed flesh 
The fragility of life
Touches us with light fingers, it tries 
But our hearts beat like the delicate wings 
Of butterflies at the end of spring 
We feel, we reel we come undone 
For a while or longer and then 
The chill settles into our bones
Wistful companion for a season 
That somehow takes root 
While summer and autumn 
flit past in their time 
Winter settles into our boots
In the lines of our palms 
And behind our eyelids like iodex balm 
Tearing now and then at flesh and veins 
Amid the dead quietness it brings 
Of endings, a resting in the dirges it sings 
Winter becomes our climate within
And we toughen our skins 
With hope, nostalgia and other things 
And somehow we survive, we go on 
Wrapped in hours and days and years 
Until it happens all over again.
Stephanie Weaver

VERSE | TEA FOR TWO

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, Joy, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
It was two for tea and tea for two
Both meeting after a decade or two 
Friends of old, kins of the heart 
Separated by time and circumstance 
Chatter and laugh over tea for two 

Tea for two and two for tea 
Neighbours for a year, kindred souls for twenty-three
They’d seen each other through thick and thin 
Loving Kintsugi* mending walls where they’d grown thin
Catch up over two for tea

It was two for tea and tea for two
From working together their friendship grew
They had rejoiced in one another’s highs 
Had held each other’s hands in trying times 
Rendezvous over tea for two

Tea for two and two for tea
The sister and the brother sit quietly
The coolness of bruised hearts lies around 
The air is rent with empty sounds
As they try to build bridges over two for tea

It is usually two for tea and tea for two
That brings hearts together, both the sunny and the blue 
Loving ones forge ever joyful memories 
Aching ones for a while find some peace
When they come together over tea for two.
* Kintsugi: The Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — built on the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.

VERSE | MELANCHOLIA

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
When evening falls and once again 
Melancholia sets in 
Tinctures and shadows of times gone by 
Come bleeding, weeping in 

When the orbit of the earth 
Has brought in the dark of night 
And memories, remembrances 
When all with the world was right 

When you cannot escape the bed
That has forged into a cell 
Holding you fast for the night 
In unending wakefulness

When at last your weary mind 
At some hour releases you 
Into realms of visions and dreams
That bruise and lance anew

When you finally awake 
And the sun shines bright again 
Pumping the lifeblood that the night 
Has stolen from your veins 

Breathe in deeply, close your eyes
This will not be the last 
Of eventide’s strange conjuring 
Of aching for the past 

Many will be the days when 
The joyless cycle will repeat 
But at some point the salve of time
Will turn the memories bittersweet.

VERSE | HEALING

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, womenwriters, writingLeave a comment 
She looks down at the empty page 
Something is on her mind 
A plot, a verse for better or worse 
For the rest, a pithy line 

But nothing stirs into rank and file 
For her to string together 
The words and phrases spin like crazy 
She just can’t find the tether 

“I looked at him in puzzlement…”
No today she couldn’t go there 
“She sat serene and beautiful
With a magnolia in her hair…”

She felt herself choke a little 
She couldn’t walk there either 
In sepia-toned dreams is where
She felt happiest seeing her 

A cup of tea, a pastry 
That sublime combination
Surely she could muster up 
Something for that occasion 

But her thoughts were far away 
They were looking at something else 
The woman poised upon her page 
Needed healing herself 

So they had set up a little storm 
In the space of her tearing mind 
Whirling, swirling round and round 
Until the pain was left behind 

Then to her blue-stung heart they went 
To gently numb the precious space
Odes to life’s ripple and swell 
Could wait for another day.

VERSE | BREATHE

On By Mahvash K. M.In poetry, serenity, verse, writingLeave a comment 
Stop and listen - do you hear 
The wind blow through the trees?
Let your mind soar up a little 
To the rustle of the leaves

Stop and look - do you see
Her golden yellow wings?
As the bee floats round the flowers 
Gathering nectary-sweet things 

Stop and touch - do you feel
The texture of the bark?
Of the grand old banyan tree 
It’s head swaying up with the lark 

Stop be still - let your heart fill 
And your atoms all slow down 
As you walk through the ethereal realm 
Of nature as she abounds
Featured

VERSE | UNTIL THEN

On By Mahvash K. M.In hope, poetry, verse, writingLeave a comment 
He looked at me with eyes of love 
I could not hold his gaze 
My heart lay closed and tightly bound 
In yards of purple lace 

It once had soared high above 
Where eagles roam the skies 
But since then it had plummeted 
It had shrivelled up and dried

By and by it beat again 
As I slowly found my peace 
But it still liked to hide away 
In its blue-violet niche 

So when he looked at me with eyes 
That spoke of tender starts 
I looked away, there was no way
Into my blue-bruised heart 

Someday when the colours change 
Of the blood that flows within 
Of when my heart reddens anew
And once more soars and sings

I hope that I can hold that gaze 
So full of affection 
Until then I hope to heal enough
To want to love again