The courage to be vulnerable by Shaheen Bhatt

0:02: There's this mythical state of happiness that we're all trying to achieve. Does it exist?
0:07: And I don't think it does. And I think that's the part of the problem is that we've been
0:11: oversold a fairy tale that is not real.
0:16: All right, welcome to Be All You Can, a space where stories meet self-discovery and conversations
0:22: help us grow into the fullest versions of ourselves. My name is Rishi K. I'm your host
0:28: and today's guest is Shaheen Bhatt. Shaheen's using a voice to turn real experiences into
0:33: strength.I think that's remarkable. And the impact really goes beyond herself. Through
0:39: her journey with mental health, she's found not only her own voice, but has also created
0:45: a really safe space for countless others to feel seen, to feel heard, and to feel understood.
0:51: Hey, wonderful to see you. Wonderful to talk to you. How are you?
0:54: I'm good.I know. I'm so happy to talk to you after what feels like literally forever.
0:59: This podcast is about people who live their lives with purpose.You've turned your most
1:05: painful experience, which is clinical depression into a book, a platform, a production company.
1:13: How did purpose enter your life? Was it like a conscious choice? Or did it arrive through
1:17: the cracks that been left behind?
1:21: So it's been a evolving journey. And for me, I think purpose has been something that I've
1:29: uncovered.And it's taken some time to come to and the way that I kind of uncovered it was,
1:34: you know, honestly, it came quietly, you know, from the side, like from the side,
1:39: it wasn't something that I was kind of actively looking for. It came as a result of me in a lot
1:45: of ways trying to survive the experiences that I was having in my life and what it did.
1:50: The surviving of it shaped a voice for me that I didn't realise I didn't realise it was happening
1:55: while it was happening.But it happened quietly. And so to answer your question, I think definitely
2:01: it came through the cracks. It is something that just sort of in a way seeped in when I didn't
2:06: really notice it was happening.
2:08: You've written and I'm going to quote, depression is a monster,
2:12: a villain, a thief. And even the worst of experiences teach you something. I demanded
2:18: my lessons and I took them head on. Shaheen, what does it mean practically to demand something from
2:24: your suffering? And how do you teach that to someone who's still in the middle of the storm?
2:29: We're talking to so many people out there. And that's really the purpose of this conversation,
2:32: to reach out to others who have been impacted.
2:36: I don't think you know, I mean, to be very honest, that is a sentence that was written
2:40: in hindsight.It was it's written retrospectively. It's not something that you can teach somebody
2:47: who is going through it, because then you're also burdening somebody with the necessity to find
2:52: meaning in their suffering while it's going on. And while it's going on, you don't really find
2:56: meaning in it.So for me, I realised that one of the only ways that I was going to be able to
3:03: survive the experiences that I had was I had to alchemise it for myself. Not everyone can do
3:09: that. Not everyone needs to do that.Again, it's a really, really personal thing. Sometimes there is
3:14: no lesson in it. Sometimes pain is just pain.And that's also okay. That's also valid. It doesn't
3:18: make it any less valid.I love the word alchemise. Yeah, it's a good word. Listen, for young people,
3:26: particularly young women, growing up in environments where they feel defined by someone
3:31: else's success, someone else's legacy.What is your single most important piece of advice for finding
3:38: and living your own sense of purpose? Like I said, I think purpose is something that
3:45: you kind of uncover. It's something that you come to when you're talking about feeling sort
3:51: of defined by someone else's success and also even a sense of purpose. I think in society,
3:58: we have a very standard measure for what we consider purpose or what we consider success.
4:05: It's what we consider to be a very tangible, palpable thing, something that you can see.
4:11: That's not always what purpose is. Purpose varies for various people.And I guess the
4:16: thing that I would say is that when you strip away the audience, when you strip away whoever's
4:22: watching, does that feeling of purpose or that ambition, does it stay put or does it change?
4:27: Because who are you doing it for? So I would say if you're looking to understand what your
4:31: sense of purpose is outside of your family, your friends, your peers, does it go away when no one's
4:39: watching or does it stay the same? If it stays the same, if tomorrow there was nobody to watch you,
4:44: nobody to validate it, nobody to say good job, bad job, anything doesn't stay the same, then
4:49: likely that's your purpose. If not, then you need to kind of go back and think about who you were
4:55: before the world's measures and limitations got its hands on you.
5:01: I love that you would call your production company Here Comes the Sun, also because it's a George
5:07: Harrison song.It's so beautiful. It's about light returning after a long, dark winter.
5:14: If you were to describe where you are right now in your own life, I mean, the book's been written,
5:19: the platform's built, the production company is thriving, there's a new film on the horizon.
5:25: What season is it in Shaheen's life and what does the sun feel like today?
5:30: I mean, Here Comes the Sun is the name of my mental health platform. Interestingly,
5:33: our production company also has sunshine in it. It's called Eternal Sunshine.
5:38: Yeah, we're all about sunshine. What season is it? That's a very interesting question.
5:44: I don't think that I can, I can't really define a season.But you know, the interesting thing,
5:49: the way that I look at seasons in general is every season is shedding something of the previous,
5:54: you know, every season. So even though I feel like I'm not in one season, in particular,
5:59: I feel like I'm going through different seasons every single day.
6:02: So the debut feature, I thought was delightfully twisted, Darlings.It was Jasmeet K. Reen's
6:07: film. Since then you've produced Pocha, directed by the brilliant man Rishi Mehta.
6:17: And of course, there's Jigra.I want to know the founding philosophy of Eternal Sunshine.
6:22: What kind of stories does it exist to tell?
6:24: You know, the thing is that we don't, it's not like we have a specific type of story that we
6:31: will tell and a specific type of story that we won't tell. I think what we have realised, however,
6:35: is that we live in a world that is quite overwhelming and quite stressful.
And if
6:42: we can tell you stories that, you know, ease that sense of tension for you, that's the kind
6:48: of story that we would like to tell. Of course, we're very passionate about telling stories that
6:53: have a, you know, like we're talking about purpose. There is purpose underlying everything
6:59: that we kind of do.There are specific types of stories that we're drawn to. Usually they are
7:05: subtly message driven, not, you know, not necessarily overtly. But I think we're just,
7:11: at the end of the day, just looking to entertain and, you know, to bring a sense of,
7:17: you know, ease with the stories that we want to tell.
7:21: I'm very excited by Don't Be Shy. In fact, I was in the audience at the Amazon event where they
7:26: were releasing their slate for the entire year. And when you guys went on stage and,
7:31: you know, announced it, it follows Sharmilee Shy Das, who I imagine is a 20 year old girl who
7:38: thinks she has everything figured out until her perfectly planned life takes that unpredictable
7:42: turn.I think there's something deeply resonant about a character named Shy, who's actually
7:48: carefully constructed her life. And then it just begins to unravel. Was there something personal
7:55: in that story for you, a version of yourself you recognised in it as the maker?
8:00: A hundred percent.I mean, I think the thing that we say about Don't Be Shy is that it's a story
8:05: that you grow up with. Because we all have those stories and those films that we've watched that,
8:11: you know, kind of have a special place in our lives. And we kind of grow up with that type
8:17: of tale.So there's something nostalgic and familiar, but fresh about the film.
8:21: And it's a story that we're just very, very excited about.
8:25: Shaheen, you've described yourself as someone who chose words and writing,
8:30: while the rest of your family, your world around you chose lights and camera.
Now, in a family
8:36: defined by the movies, by Bollywood, how did you protect and nurture a quieter, more interior
8:43: identity? And did that ever tend to be lonely sometimes? The thing that I wanted to do was
8:49: always, it's the same thing. It's storytelling. Inherently, my family are all storytellers.
8:54: The way that they tell stories is just slightly more front foot. You see them while they're
8:59: telling their stories. For me, I've always loved this quote that a writer is someone who wants to
9:03: tell you a story, but doesn't want to make eye contact with you while doing it.
So that's me
9:08: in a nutshell. The goal is the same. The desire is the same.I just want to do it in a slightly
9:15: different way. So the loneliness, I think, came when I was younger. And I was just, I guess,
9:20: reckoning with the fact that it was just something I was not doing in the exact same way.
9:27: But it's who I am. Inherently, it's who I am. I am a writer, you know, at heart and at soul.
9:36: Shaheen, it's not easy to hand over your most private pain to the public, to go public with it.
9:43: And just before going to print for your book, you said you were conflicted. But then you
9:48: obviously told yourself that you need to own your own truth.Can you just take us into that moment?
9:54: I know it's been a few years, but what does it actually feel like to decide to hand over your
9:59: most private pain to the public? You know, I forget, honestly, that I've done it until people
10:04: come up to me sometimes and they're like, we read your book. I mean, I do remember, I do remember
10:09: having a moment of like, do I really want to do this? But at the same time, while I was writing
10:13: the book throughout the entire process, I don't really think I thought about what it meant to do
10:17: it. So, I mean, ultimately, I think it's one of the greatest gifts I've given myself doing that.
10:23: Because, you know, like you talked about owning your story. It's not that I was hiding the fact
10:27: that I was, you know, going through what I was going through. I just wasn't necessarily
10:32: talking about it very openly all the time.And in a way, there's just completely the veil lifted,
10:38: you know, there was nothing, there was nothing to pretend about anymore. Now, when I walk into
10:42: a room and somebody says, hey, how are you doing? I can go, ah, not great, man, bad day today, like
10:47: today's a bad weather day. I can actually say that and you know, I don't have to, I don't have
10:53: the pressure of having to pretend I'm feeling anything other than what I'm feeling and people
10:57: get that.And since doing it, honestly, a lot of the, a lot of the weight of what I was dealing
11:03: with actually completely dissipated. Why was it so important for you to draw that line clearly,
11:09: especially in a culture like ours, that really sometimes celebrates the tortured artist?
11:14: I think the tortured artist trope is something that has become kind of a staple, you know,
11:20: across, you know, globally, it's something that everybody kind of assumes that if you're somebody
11:27: who's creative, the route to being creative is to be, you know, in pain in some way. And I think
11:32: the problem with that is you're giving depression a purpose that it hasn't earned.
11:36: You know, there is, I will always say there is value, there is value in pain if you, if you
11:41: choose to look for it. But like you said, pain and depression, very, very, very different things.
11:47: We all go through pain.Unequivocally, if you are a human being, part of being human is being in pain
11:54: at some point in your life. Being depressed is an entirely different thing. That is something
12:00: that it robs you of every sort of resource that you have.
12:06: You know, I'm just curious to know the scanned copies of your actual diary entries.
12:11: You know, anybody who reads that book, I've had people describing them as difficult,
12:18: gut-wrenching, essential, interesting. How did you decide to include those raw unfiltered entries
12:25: rather than do a reconstruction, which is what normally authors do,
12:29: a so-called polished reconstruction of that particular time?
12:33: Because like you said, a reconstruction is polished.It's a smoothed out version of,
12:39: you know, whatever it is that I was experiencing. And it was important for me to show you because
12:44: while I was in the moment experiencing what I was experiencing, I was not on the other side,
12:50: understanding that it would go away. I was not understanding that it would get better.
12:54: I was living it. And in my head, that was how life was going to be. It's important to see the
13:01: way someone's mind works when they don't know that they're going to get to the other side of
13:05: something.So, you know, it's as close as I could take readers to what was going on for me in my
13:15: mind at the time. And I think it's a nice insight into how depression sort of, you know, moulds your
13:20: thoughts. Well, those of you who've read the book would know exactly what I'm talking about,
13:24: if you haven't.At the core of a book is a conversation where Shaheen asks her dad,
13:30: the great Batsaab, why don't I know how to be happy? And Batsaab responds, why do you want to
13:36: be happy? And that exchange seems to open up something much larger than depression.
13:43: What is the philosophical question you were really trying to answer in writing the book, Shaheen?
13:49: Um, there's this mythical state of happiness that we're all trying to achieve. Does it exist?
13:54: And I don't think it does.And I think that's the part of the problem is that we've been
13:59: oversold a fairy tale that is not real. It's impossible to, you know, try and be happy all
14:05: the time. So for me, I think the question was, is this mythical thing, is it real? And no,
14:13: I don't think it is.And is it so bad? You know, is it actually so bad that that's not real? Because
14:17: the transience of life is also the most, while it's a scary thing, it's also one of the most
14:22: comforting things. Good feelings don't last short, but that also means bad feelings don't last. That's
14:27: a great thing.You've spoken about the hardest part of battling depression was telling the people
14:32: you love, and the people who love you, what you were actually going through. And, you know,
14:40: you were open about that. That is vulnerability to me.My question is, what does vulnerability
14:45: cost us in relationships? And most importantly, what does vulnerability ultimately give back to us
14:53: if we allow ourselves to be vulnerable? Vulnerability costs us a performance.
14:59: So in my mind, it doesn't it doesn't cost you anything that you really want to hold on to .
15:04: anyway. It costs you the performative version of yourself.Every human relationship is based
15:10: on the connection that comes from vulnerability, every single one. And as human beings, that's what
15:15: we're here for. It is, you know, it is the ultimate source of comfort to us in the long run.
15:21: We tend to see it for some reason as something that's really, really dangerous, and something
15:26: that's scary and something that's painful. But there is no greater gift than you can kind of
15:30: give yourself. Yeah.You were just 12 when you first experienced depression, but you didn't know
15:37: what it was like. Lots of us don't. We just think we are weird.And you probably thought that too,
15:42: that you were weird and different from everybody else, because you couldn't be happy the way
15:46: everyone else seemed to be happy, seemed to be happy. Looking back at that 12 year old girl,
15:50: what would you want to tell 12 year old Shaheen today?
15:56: Just that you're comparing yourself to what everybody seems to be. You're still comparing
16:01: yourself to the performance.So, you know, I think just remember that just because just what
16:08: everything you see of somebody is not exactly who they are, and everybody just like you is
16:12: figuring it out and you will too. When strangers come up to you and say, Shaheen your story helped
16:17: me, what does that do to you emotionally? Does it feel affirming, a little heavy, humbling,
16:24: or I don't know, all of those things at once? It just it affirms everything that I, you know,
16:29: sort of believe in, which is that, you know, we have to talk about how we're feeling and the
16:35: one of the fundamental problems that we have in society today is that everyone is pretty much
16:41: feeling the same thing, but no one's talking about it. So everyone thinks they're alone.
16:45: And the more you talk about something, the more you realise everyone is going through some version
16:50: of the same thing. And you feel less alone and you feel less like it's an aberration and you feel
16:57: less weird and you feel less abnormal. And you just feel like, you know, just one more person
17:04: who is trying to figure out, you know, this strange beautiful thing called life.
17:10: So is that what Indian families are getting wrong about mental health conversations at home? They're
17:16: just not talking, especially when the person suffering appears functional from the outside.
17:20: Oh, she looks okay. He looks okay.I think the fundamental thing that we need to change
17:26: is our understanding of how depression functions. A lot of people can deal with
17:29: incredibly, incredibly bad days, but still move around and get things done. And you will not,
17:33: nobody knew what I was going through until I talked about it.
You know, as people dealing
17:37: with mental health issues, we become very, very good at masking our emotions. So you just assume
17:42: that just because nobody's talking about it, everyone is dealing with it just fine. That's
17:47: not the case.You know, at Godrej, we often speak about the importance of having a purpose or a
17:53: quote unquote North Star. What has been your anchor shine through the highs and lows?
18:00: I wouldn't use the word anchor. I like the word North Star very much because I think an anchor
18:04: is something that kind of roots you and keeps you in place.North Star is something that gives you
18:07: direction. So I like the idea of it being a North Star. And for me, that's always been writing.
18:14: It's been my compass through trying to, you know, find, figure out how I'm feeling, what I'm
18:19: feeling, why I'm feeling that way. You're such a strong voice for mental health.
18:25: One is your own condition and realisation.But what really inspired you to begin that
18:32: journey, saying that I want to work in mental health? Honestly, it wasn't a thought that I
18:38: consciously made or a decision that I consciously made or a thought that I had. Specifically,
 18:43: it just happened. It came from an Instagram post on a day where I was, you know, not feeling my
18:48: best and looking for something to post.And I was like, everything I was thinking about posting just
18:52: very disingenuous in comparison to how I was feeling. So I was like, let's see what happens.
18:57: I'll see how I'm actually feeling.And I did. If just talking about this raises awareness
19:03: and then writing a book is going to do even more than, you know, talking about it on a podcast or
19:08: wherever, wherever I had the opportunity to talk about it, I did it. So it wasn't a conscious
19:14: decision.It's something that just kind of came to me. And as a result of that, I've just been very
19:21: blessed to be able to, I guess, somehow turn one of the worst things in my life into something that
19:26: actually has, to me, incredible value. You know, I look at Jigra, the film,
19:31: and I'm thinking, like it or not, you're a women-led team.I mean, I don't know if gender
19:37: matters at all in certain aspects of filmmaking. But sometimes at the other end of the spectrum,
19:43: you wonder that as a women-led team, does that shape the creative process, what you guys are?
19:48: I mean, it's so interesting, the fact that we're a women-led team also just, again,
19:54: it's something that just happened. It was not a conscious thing.
It's not like we kind of decided
19:58: to do it. It was as to does it impact the creative process? I mean, I think obviously,
20:04: the more diverse your point of view is, the more, you know, the more effective your storytelling is
20:11: going to be. Yeah, we're getting a more diverse, varied opinion now because there's a lot more
20:15: women in there.The stigma around mental health, we see it improving, but you still think there's
20:25: miles to go? Are we making real world progress? You still think that stigma exists in a large
20:31: measure today? I think the stigma exists tremendously. I think it's different in that
20:36: maybe we're not quite as silent as we were about it even five years ago. But the stigma has, again,
20:42: it's changed.It's metamorphosed into something completely different now. Now, the way that
20:49: people talk about mental health and depression is everyone has this pressure to, yeah, sure,
20:55: I have mental health problems, but you should already have figured out how that you've survived
21:00: it or summarised it neatly, or it already needs to kind of fit into an arc where already we're
21:06: imposing a narrative onto everybody who is talking about their mental health, and we're expecting
21:10: them to be at the end of that narrative, which is its own kind of trap because that
21:14: means you don't see anyone who's in the middle of it, dealing with it, struggling with it. I think
21:20: it's a different kind of stigma now where, again, it is a version of romanticising it as well.
21:26: My last question to you, what would you say to someone struggling to open up
21:31: about depression or anxiety? You don't owe everyone your story or what you're feeling,
21:39: but you owe yourself one person with whom you can be completely transparent
21:44: and completely honest. You don't have to tell everybody. Find one person, choose one person,
21:50: and find that one person to tell and be completely yourself with, whether that person is a friend,
21:57: a family member, a professional, or anyone.It makes all the difference. You don't realise the
22:03: difference that it makes. You once said, why not me? What does that mindset mean to you today?
22:11: I think it's something that I hold on to.The why not me came from, there was an essayist,
22:16: I think his name was Richard Mitchell, if I'm not mistaken, who had written about,
22:22: when we all ask ourselves the pressing question, why me, why me, why me, but there's another side
22:30: to that, which is why not me? And we all focus so much on why is this happening to me that we
22:36: don't pause to think that basically the notion is that pain is inevitable and suffering is optional.
22:43: So you can torture yourself and ask yourself the question, why is this happening to me?
22:49: Or you can go, okay, why not me? This is the thing that I have been given that I have to
22:56: kind of find a way to deal with and what can I make of it? Is there something that I can make
22:59: of it? And that's at least what I've tried to do to the best of my ability.
23:04: Well, if there's one thing that I've taken away from this wonderful conversation with Shine,
23:08: but it's this that you don't have to have it all figured out to keep going.
23:13: And we must, we must soldier on. Thank you, everybody, for tuning into our podcast.
23:19: Till next time, stay inspired.
23:22: Thanks for listening to Be All You Can, a podcast by Gothrich Enterprises Group,
23:27: exploring the passion, purpose and dreams of pioneers.
23:32: Stay tuned for more stories that inspire action and impact.