Flowers Within – An Interview with a Creative Counsellor

So last week, we were all reminded of the importance of Mental Health on World Mental Health day. To me mindset is an important factor when I’m styling. I can make you look like a million dollars (it’s true!) but if your mind isn’t right you won’t feel it! That’s why I like to mix my fashion blogs with mindset interviews. This will be the third in a series of interviews I have conducted this year, because I believe in retrospection: The art of self-reflection. I find it of great value to understand why we do what we do, wear what we wear and breaking chains of habit! I can’t speak for other stylists but most of them will probably agree: Get the mind right and everything else falls into place!

I had the pleasure of interviewing and attending Chinar Abdulaziz’s ‘Flowers Within’ Workshop last month and all I can say is ‘WOW’! I’ve been to counselling sessions before but nothing like this. Sometimes we really don’t know what holds on to the inner darker depths of our mind until light is shone upon it! It was explorative and open and gave us the opportunity to look within, but gently, we didn’t even realise we were looking in. It was a counselling workshop worth going to and an interview worth having. And I’m happy to share it with you now…

Kookie Muhretti: Last month, I partook in your ‘The Flowers Within’ Workshop, which to me, was the most inspiring and invigorating experience I have had in a while. Tell us what was your inspiration behind the ‘Flowers Within’ Workshop? Where did the flowers idea come from?

Chinar Abdulazziz:To start, thank you for coming to my workshop. I am a Counsellor in private practice and have over 12 years experience in Counselling and Person-Centred Art Therapy Skills, offering creative workshops. The ‘Flowers Within’ workshop comes from a personal experience back in 2008. I experienced a secondary trauma that triggered off my primary trauma relating to a car accident, which my family and I were involved in when I was a teenager. I found that walking through nature, taking photographs of flowers and focusing on them when I was stressed helped me to stay calm, focused and grounded. Seeking professional help when I needed support was also part of my healing process. Then at the beginning of last year I came down with the flu and whilst ill, I recorded a poem I made called ‘Flowers’. Friends and family loved what they heard, they said it was relaxing and reminded them of a meditation and that’s what I decided to call it. O