THE BOOKS
Mehrnaz Massoudi
Author and Emotional Healing Coach
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NEVER WITHOUT LOVE
My original story recounts how I learned to overcome a lifetime of self-imposed repression. It is about the nature of beauty and the determination of our humanness, to find our essence and learn to live happily regardless of where we live or what obstacles we face.
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It has aspects of fun; growing up with Baba; my wonderful father and a large family of characters that span a century. The story takes the readers from Qazvin, an ancient capital of the Persian Empire, to remote mountain villages, to the glittering capital of Tehran with its cafés, dance clubs, fancy boutiques and lush parks, to a villa on the Caspian Sea, as well as to the “tin town” of Halaby Abad in Southern Tehran and to the rice paddies where women do backbreaking work for next to nothing in wages. In doing so, I deftly handle a minefield of politics, from the regime of the Shah to the foreign interests of British and Americans, to street marches and protests, to the installation of the Ayatollah Khomeini and the Islamic Republic.
Sexual politics and women’s rights are addressed throughout the memoir from the Persian custom of khastegari, to the stripping of women’s rights under the Islamic Republic.
And it has elements of sorrow; my struggle with being burned as a child, my beloved uncle is murdered by the Revolutionary Guards of Islamic Republic and my marriage to a man of the Bahai faith is illegal.
I take my readers through a labyrinth of being guided by many spiritual teachers including my Sufi great aunt and the Sufi love poets, Hafiz and Rumi. At the centre of the labyrinth, I find the peace I have sought. As I make my way back to the beginning, I hope my story inspires readers to rise again and again.
What readers have said …
“Beautifully told. Haunting story of a place that exists only in the minds of the people who lived during that time and space.”
“Must Read! a soulful journey with triumph over hardship. the author generously shares and we can all learn from her insights and wisdom. Loved this book.”
THE NAMASTE WAY
The Namasté Way is a collection of short stories written in journal style.
Three of these stories reach into the hearts of grieving mothers and expose the darkest places a woman can go when faced with the loss of her child. Mehrnaz takes readers on a rollercoaster ride of emotion as the women make their way through grieving in to a place of refuge; a place without blame or regret, it is only there that they feel the soul of their loss children. No-one, no-thing can take that away from them-that space is theirs for eternity.
In one of the stories “Grateful for Liam Cards” as Rachel, Liam’s mom, is writing down her most joyful memories she discovers an unlikely guru in her rebellious disappeared son and a pathway to living with emotional authenticity after decades of suppression, depression and disorders.
“Kathryn calls you my catalyst. She say’s you turn my grape juice into wine. She has encouraged me to surround myself with friends who listen and empathize and don’t try to fix me or solve my problems or bore me with their pop psychology. I call it SBS…Spiritual Bypass Shit. I feel like I am finally acting like my true authentic self. So, I choose you as my friend. My son. My empathe friend who I can share this heartbreak with.”
In Kenzy’s Mermaids story, Emily finds solace from guilt and the excruciating experience of witnessing her eight-year-old daughter undergoing chemotherapy by diving into the deep end of a swimming pool. “I dove in to the deep end and sat on the bottom until every atom of oxygen left my lungs. And when I ascended there were no thoughts in my head. For the first time in weeks my mind was focused on just one thing-breathing.”
In the next three stories, readers take a deep dive into the heartbreak and the loss of identity with the protagonists, where many women find themselves after break ups. Readers ascend towards light once the protagonists break away their shells that they’ve been prisoned in, in search of finding their own inner pearls. The shell of body image, the gender rolls that society has dictated for women, and materialism. The light is the reflection of the pearl that’s been there all along.
The final three stories are about surrendering to cancer, caring for aging parent, and losing a best friend to suicide.