Health and Self Care:

     The concept of health and health practices such as self care are influenced by many factors such as culture, social and ecological determinants.  For example, my earliest memories related to health and self care is from when I was a little girl and a refugee in Pakistan.  I specifically remember my cousins (my Mother’s side) making fun of my immediate family’s focus on eating healthy because my parents were more aware of the concept of health overall.  They would taunt us when we went over for dinners stating “sorry, this dish is not that healthy for you, are you sure you want to eat it?”  This scenario is a clear illustration of how culture, literacy, social and ecological determinants influence ones concept of health and self care.  Afghanistan, as a country, is one of the least developed countries in the world in terms of all the social determinants of health.   Financially, it is a poor country where food is scarce (but everything is organic because Western practices of GMO’s are nonexistent). The health care system and practices are outdated and limited.  The educational system is ineffective and nonexistent in most of the country.  To top it all off, war is part of its history and violence a part of everyday life.

    So even within our family unit, what created such a difference related to the concept of health and self care? I believe it had to do with so many factors.  First of all, health is not a forefront concept in a country where daily survival is a struggle in terms of daily necessities such as security, shelter, food and water.  Among our clan, we were the first family members to escape Afghanistan to a more secure place and the rest followed us after many years.  My immediate family was exposed to a different culture and ecological system.  The rest of the clan’s living situation back in Afghanistan continually degraded exponentially.  Their focus was survival and not health and healthy practices.  In addition, and what I believe to carry a heavier weight was the literacy levels of my Dad’s family compared to my Mom’s.  Even back in Afghanistan, as far back as my grandparents, my Dad’s side was highly educated.  In fact, some were educated outside of Afghanistan as doctors and nurses in 1980’s.  My parents (with my Dad’s influence on my Mom) were more health conscious than any of my cousin’s parents on my Mom’s side.  In fact, even back in Afghanistan, my parents always focused on nutrition and healthy eating as much as possible. 

    Fast forward to today, my own personal view of health and self care is a sum of my upbringing as noted in preceding paragraphs, and the journey beyond.  Today, what shapes how I define health and self care practices is influenced by being raised for more than 2/3 of my life in Canada, practicing as a nurse and nurse educator for more than 15 years, having a high level of education as evidenced by being enrolled in post graduate studies, and being more self aware of health overall.  Health to me means being whole, not just in the physical domain, but in emotional and spiritual domains as well.  It is not just about eating healthy and exercising; it is about taking care of my spiritual and emotional well being too.  I think of health as a 4 legged pedestal with physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health forming the four legs with equal length, width and distance apart, forming a strong base for the stool.  Anytime, there is disequilibrium, the stool of ‘health’ is no longer sturdy, but shaky and could even fall over if too skewed.   There is a need for balance between the four domains. Good nutrition and exercise needs to be balanced with social activities for emotional and mental health as well as spending time alone to connect to our self to strengthen our spirituality.

    Personally, balance between all four spheres of my being is my focus of self care practices.  I work hard to make sure that in a 24 hour period, I focus equally on activities that benefit all areas.  However, despite my due diligence, achieving balance is proofing a challenge.  I do better with physical health than in the other spheres.  This can be due to my upbringing, the current focus of Western society on physical health or the social and ecological determinants that are unique to my entity.  However, I am not the only one struggling with balance in my community as evident by the mental health crises.  This is a city where our obsession with physical health is promoted in every aspect of society.  For example, a lot of funding is spent on making gyms accessible, putting focus on nutrition and related research, however, access to mental health resources such as quality counseling is only available to the privileged with an extended benefit package.  In conclusion, just like other health practices, self care, is a complex phenomenon, unique to everyone and interrelated with all other social as well as ecological determinants. 

An introduction

In the hustle and bustle of today's life and all that encompasses it, it is so easy to get caught up with the 'doing' as opposed to 'living' life.  Take a minute and pause to live that moment in life that was meant to be experienced by only you, only in that moment!

Be mindful everyday!


This quote by David Cunliffe reflects where I am at currently in my personal journey of spirituality and general well being.  This is not my original poster image due to copy right issues so I had to research another image because it was important to me to introduce myself with a meaningful image and quote.  

I was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, during the Russian invasion.  I was the youngest of 7 children and apparently the most rebellious and imaginative of the bunch, as per my Mother.  Despite the ongoing war and instability, my fondest memories of my childhood are from Afghanistan.  Although life was hard, even for middle class families such as mine, it was still great.  My Dad worked for the government and my Mom was a stay at home Mom.  We lived in a very social community surrounded by (geographically and otherwise) family and relatives.  My Grandma, uncle and aunties all lived on the same street.  I was always out playing and eating at other relatives' houses. Despite the occasional  overhead rockets and bombs, we lived a satisfying life.  To top it off, we had property in the countryside where I spent all of my summers with my Mother and older sister.  We had a farm house with a view of a lake with all kinds of farm animals (I even got to name them).  We also grew and imported fruits to the retailers in the capital city.  The yearly summer/fall visits were not exactly vacation time for my Mother because the sole purpose of the visits was for her to oversee the harvesting of the crops and also to bring livestock back to the capital for the ensuing winter for food.  My Dad in the meantime stayed in the capital during the summers due to work commitments and to take care of the rest of the children.  There was always social events to attend such as weddings, engagements, birthdays and so on.  It is my definition of a healthy and connected community.  

However, it was short lived because we had to escape to the neighboring country and leave everything behind in the middle of the night when I was six years old.  That was the start of a lot of hardships and survival became a means to life as refugees.  Despite the struggles, there was still a sense of 'refugee' community.  There were other Afghan refugees and we all struggled together and still maintained social gatherings.  Even thought this new found community was not as stable as the one we left behind because we all knew it was a temporary state, it was still a community with shared interests, goals and struggles.  I have a lot of fond memories of my adventures there.  Sadly, I lost my dear Father to cancer at a young age of 10.  Shortly after, we immigrated to Vancouver and a whole new era of life and disconnections began.

I understand the value of community disconnectedness at a personal level.  Having a sense of community and belonging is important to our health, especially mental health.  Even though we struggled to live during war and as refugees in a whole different country, we still felt and lived happy.  We were mentally, emotionally and socially healthier.  We were connected as a community.  Once we arrived in Canada, social isolation took effect because we were not connected to our community anymore.  We had to learn to be Canadians and to do that, we had to adopt the new culture and disassociate from our old culture in its totality.  In the interim between letting go of my old culture and the total assimilation of the Canadian culture, my main focus, as expected by my family, was academic success. Academic success was how I defined myself and my self worth from early teenage hood until my late 20's.  It was a time filled with anxiety, uncertainty and instability.  At some point in my late 20's, I started noticing that I was not living a fulfilling life.  My focus became healthy living and building healthy connections, to others and to everything around me.  I started exploring mindfulness and meditation.  I started the journey of becoming a TOTAL healthy person.  It is noteworthy that by this time, I had been working in the health care industry since late teenage hood in various different roles.  I preached the concept of healthy living to my patients and students in terms of health promotion, but I now know that they were merely recitals, what I was taught in nursing school.  The concept of healthy living and healthy communities became meaningful to me through life experiences as well as through education.  Hence, health and education are interconnected topics.

My decision to enroll in the HEAL program was based on personal and professional reasons.  This was reinforced to me after our first weekend of classes.  This course will complement my personal growth and challenge me to dig deeper and find my own meaning of health.  Professionally,  as a nursing educator, I am part of a bigger community of health care providers and this course will equip me with valuable resources that I can draw from and share with others.  I am really looking forward to working with all of my fellow students, faculty and staff at SFU and growing as a community of proactive healers.  I am hoping to be a learning resource by sharing my personal and professional experiences and insights with others in hopes of affecting positive change within our group and our community at large.