YogiWrites

Real healing doesn’t happen in perfect silence—it happens in the beautiful chaos of everyday life. One person’s journey from seeking peace in ashrams to finding medicine in Pune’s traffic jams, chai stalls, and uncomfortable moments.

For the longest time, I thought healing looked like a Himalayan retreat. Silence. Shanti. Sattvik food and sandalwood dreams floating through morning mist.

Turns out, it looked more like a sweaty rickshaw ride through FC Road. Horn-blaring chaos. People yelling. My anxiety doing pushups on my chest while auto-drivers played chicken with death.

My real healing didn’t start in an ashram. It started at Nal Stop, where life doesn’t give you choices—only lessons.

THE SIGNAL THAT BROKE ME OPEN

One humid Wednesday, I was late for acupuncture clinic. Scooty stalled like my life plans. My back was throbbing—the leftover gift from six years of being bed-ridden, courtesy of a spine that decided to retire early.

Just as I hit the Karve Road signal, a lady in an oversized SUV rolled down her window and shouted, “Move fast, na! You’re blocking everyone!”

Everyone. As if my broken scooty was personally responsible for Pune’s traffic legacy.

I wanted to scream back. Instead, I just sat there. Scooty half-dead. Spine half-healed. Heart very, very tired.

And then it hit me.

Not the SUV (thankfully). But the realization that all my effort to escape the noise, the tension, the drama—was also me escaping life itself.

Healing isn’t somewhere far. It’s somewhere deep. And that day, sitting in that beautiful, chaotic mess, it cracked me open like a coconut on temple steps.

THE CHAIWALA WHO KNEW MY PAIN

Every evening after clinic, I’d drag myself to this tiny tea stall near Kothrud depot. The guy there—Raju bhai—had wrists like temple bells, always jingling as he stirred chai with the precision of a surgeon.

“Back pain again?” he’d ask without looking up, like he had X-ray vision through his steam clouds.

He knew. Knew when I was limping more than usual. Knew when I was smiling that plastic smile that fools everyone except the people who actually see you.

“Take this,” he said once, handing me a ginger-loaded chai that could wake the dead. “Boil your anger before it boils you.”

That cup wasn’t Ayurvedic. It wasn’t Instagram-worthy. But it healed more than most retreats ever could.

Because sometimes, healing is being seen by someone who doesn’t even need a brochure to know your pain. Someone who serves medicine in a glass tumbler for seven rupees.

WHEN MARKETING BROKE MY SPIRIT

I was deep into a client campaign—late nights, fake metrics, influencer drama that made reality TV look authentic. It felt like running a marathon in shoes that didn’t fit, while everyone cheered for your speed.

I told my mentor, “I can’t do this anymore. I feel… hollow. Like I’m performing healing instead of actually healing.”

He didn’t say, “Take a break.” He didn’t recommend another wellness app.

He said, “Maybe you’re not breaking down. Maybe you’re breaking open.”

That one line sat with me longer than any guided meditation. Because healing is not always about fixing what’s broken. It’s about feeling fully, till you stop faking your way through life.

GYMS, GODS, AND GROWING PAINS

My spine recovery wasn’t linear. Some days I could deadlift like I was competing for Olympics. Some days I could barely get out of bed without feeling like I’d been hit by a PMPML bus.

One particularly bad day at the Kabir Baug rope therapy centre, I asked the old therapist there, “When will I be fully okay? When will this stop being my story?”

He chuckled—that laugh that carries decades of watching people ask the same desperate question.

“Beta, even Lord Vishnu needed a snake bed. Why you expecting perfection in a human body?”

Boom.

Ancient wisdom meets Pune sarcasm. Exactly what my ego needed to hear.

THE REFLECTION: CHAOS IS A TEMPLE TOO

We’re sold this lie that peace comes only in silence. That growth happens only in stillness. That healing requires perfect conditions, perfect timing, perfect everything.

But some of the deepest healing happens in the noise. In traffic that tests your patience. In chai stalls that serve wisdom with tea. In hard conversations that strip away pretense. In rejected pitches and rejected lovers that force you to face who you really are.

Because chaos doesn’t block healing. It forces it.

It’s life throwing coconuts at your head till you finally open up and let the light in.

HOW THIS APPLIES TO YOU

If you’re waiting for the perfect weekend, perfect therapist, or perfect mountain view to start healing—stop waiting.

Look around. Your version of Raju bhai is nearby. Your Kabir Baug might be an old gym in the next lane, or a friend who tells you uncomfortable truths, or even a traffic signal that makes you sit with yourself for three minutes.

Healing hides in uncomfortable places. Don’t run from them. Sit inside them till they transform from chaos into sacred space.

PS: If this hit somewhere close to home…

Share it with that one friend who’s trying to escape their mess instead of understanding it. And subscribe if you’re into raw stories, bitter truths, and the occasional spine joke that makes you laugh through the pain.

You’re not alone in the chaos. You’re just in the middle of the medicine.

And sometimes, that’s exactly where the healing begins.

Share your own ‘healing in chaos’ moment in the comments below. What unexpected place taught you the most about yourself? Hit subscribe for more raw stories about finding medicine in the mess, and forward this to someone who needs to hear that their chaos might just be their healing in disguise.”