Despite having several educational degrees to her name, the only career Sidra Jafri has had is that of an ‘awakening facilitator’. While that doesn’t sound like something you hear everyday, she looks like someone meant to do what she does as she stands on stage in front of a hundred people and talks about self-discovery and betterment.
The workshop, conducted at Hotel Westin in Velachery, promised to focus on improving relationships with money, physical health and dissolving conflicts in personal relationships. Three hours, however, is too short a period to actually resolve any of life’s problems. ‘The Awakening’ proved to be more of a beginner’s guide to betterment by inviting people to look into their lives and urging them to let go of conflicts from the past.
Right at the start, Sidra warns us of three dangerous words that would hinder us in life and during the workshop – I know that! She says this possibly because all her truths about life are things we are all aware of but never manage to remember. For someone looking for a little bit of perspective in life, which quite often most of us are, all we need is someone to remind us the simple things in life because, as Sidra says, “The simplest things are the most profound.”
With the enthusiasm of a children’s storyteller, Sidra illustrates all her truths about life by narrating anecdotes to keep her audience attentive. Sidra tells us that life is much like a house of mirrors where you get back what you give. This proves true in her case too, as she stands on stage with a radiant smile and the conviction to change people’s lives for the better, her audience often laugh and nod as she speaks and occasionally, I even get to hear someone whisper, “That’s so true!”
The last hour of the workshop is a ‘magic session’ where Sidra invites her audience on stage to read their energy and help them resolve conflicts from the past that they are holding on to. As she predicts the possibilities of the conflicts in someone’s life, the audience watches in rapt attention and possibly wonders, just as I do, if she really can look into someone’s life and read their past. For the most part, however, that feels irrelevant as her instructions for life resonate with the audience and most of them seem content with the little pearls of wisdom she doles out.
