Unconventional with Anchelaa Thiru

Iman Grewal is a passionate Toronto born Artist and Mental Health Advocate. Iman’s mental health journey started at a very young age when she found herself trying to understand her mother's undiagnosed mental illness and father's battle with alcohol addiction. Iman and her siblings faced extreme poverty, homelessness and a sense of hopelessness growing up. These early challenges ignited a fire and hustle inside Iman that propelled her into becoming the successful entrepreneur and artist she is today. 

In her teens, she left her unstable home, dropped out of high school and decided to pursue dance fulltime as a means of survival. A trained professional classical dancer, Iman found healing and a sense of community through her artistic expression while mentoring other aspiring young artists in her community. During this time, Iman enrolled in college which gave her the confidence to open her own artist management and performance company called Kama Entertainment. 

Her company gained the status of North America's leading fusion entertainment company for ten years. Iman's tenacious hustle, drive, and resiliency led her to be handpicked to perform as a professional dancer for elite audiences at International events such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland twice where former US President Bill Clinton had been in attendance. With all this success came Iman's own battle with mental health. Suffering from anxiety, depression, and PTSD from her abusive childhood led to Iman's first nervous breakdown in her early twenties. Trying to juggle a business, a sick mother who refused help for her mental illness, Iman knew she needed time to heal and help heal others knowing she wasn't alone in the mental health challenges she faced.  This is when Iman decided to switch careers and started to work for the Canadian Mental Health Association in the distress center. This took Iman down the path to learn and understand deeply her own mental health struggles while finally understanding her parents' cultural barriers when trying to seek help or understand their challenges as immigrants. With no language to describe mental health or addiction along with facing further stigma within their Sikh Punjabi community, this led Iman's parents towards further isolation and despair. However, Iman was determined to lead a different life. Her courageous front line work in the mental health field both within mental health organizations and in group homes working closely with at-risk youth suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome to Schizophrenia earned her story of service to be recognized and nominated by her peers as one of the 6 mental health hero's chosen from a nationwide search to be featured in the first-ever Readers Digest article, 'Hero's of Mental Health'. This informative piece focused on bringing awareness to mental health through the lens of everyday people working tirelessly to make a difference through volunteering and working in organizations dedicated to helping fight the stigma related to mental illness. 

After 5 years in the mental health field, Iman decided to return to the arts where she has worked for the City of Toronto’s largest contemporary art festival, Nuit blanche as a Project Coordinator for the last 4 years. Iman went on to work as an Event Producer at the Toronto International Film Festival curating high profile red carpet gala events for global superstars Priyanka Chopra and Charlize Theron. Most recently, Iman accepted the role of South Asian Programmer at the Toronto International Film Festival which led her to program a SOLD OUT tribute to her Bollywood ICON, Sridevi Kapoor. Always looking for growth and new challenges, Iman joined Canada’s leading arts organization Artscape to manage their newest project, the opening of Artscape Daniels Launchpad, Toronto's first-ever entrepreneurial hub for artists to thrive. Within this role, Iman also led the partnership and educational events for HXOUSE, an arts incubator founded by homegrown superstar The Weeknd and his Creative Director Lamar Taylor. Today Iman has found a balance and a way to work and serve in both her passion for the arts and mental health. A fulltime creative and Events Curator, Iman finds joy and purpose speaking publicly at various mental health events where she is able to share her own story of resiliency to help others find their way to heal and live a full life regardless of their mental health diagnoses, childhood traumas or their own limitations in their mind. Iman has found her own healing through embracing the yogic way of life and meditation which helps her embrace her pain and turn it into growth. Iman also currently sits on the board for the leading South Asian mental health organization, Soch Mental Health. 

'When we deny our stories, they define us. When we own our stories, we get to write a brave new ending' Brene Brown.

In this episode Iman shares:

- How she got into dance

- How dance became a means of survival when she left home at a young age

- How her abusive childhood pushed her into toxic relationships

- Why she switched careers

- Mental Health in the South Asian community

and much more!

This is an episode you don't want to miss! Thank you, Iman, for opening up and sharing parts of your beautiful journey with us. If you would like to get in touch with Iman you can find her on Instagram @imantdot.

Anchelaa xo

Manjula Selvarajah is a Toronto-based journalist, a technology columnist with segments airing on CBC Radio's 20+ radio stations across the country and a guest host on CBC's Ontario weekend show. She is a frequent emcee and moderator, with repeat speaking appearances at Elevate, Collision and #MovetheDial. In her former role, she was Vice President of Marketing at Eloqua and holds an Engineering degree from Queen’s University.  She is an avid community volunteer and co-founder of the non-profit Tamil Women Rising. She loves talking about current affairs, technology, books, the Tamil diaspora, marketing strategy, and entrepreneurship.

In this podcast episode, Manjula shares:

• How she became a Journalist and what inspired her

You can connect with Manjula on Twitter & Instagram @manjaselva! Check out Tamil Women Rising on their website www.tamilwomenrising.org

Hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Sherina is a licensed clinical psychologist, mental health advocate, and a very passionate traveler who currently resides in Barcelona, Spain.  The constant self-doubts, insecurities, fears, and comparisons she went through as an adolescent made her suffer from severe anxiety, insomnia, self-sabotage, and confusion. She had no clear sense of self or identity, no purpose in life and no self-awareness nor clear values. She was unable to achieve any of her dreams because the beliefs she had about herself made sure she wasn’t made for them. She uses herself as a clear example of someone who was able to transform her life by shifting her mindset, habits, and vision. Now, she uses her experience and her knowledge to support other women in building their confidence, re-program their belief system, and create a lifestyle that fits their desires.

In this episode, Sherina shares how she overcame her shyness & insecurities, what she had to sacrifice while doing 2 degrees at the same time, her time as a professional dancer, why she decided to become a clinical psychologist and much more!

You can contact her through her website, Instagram and Facebook.

www.sherinasham.com

IG @sherina_sham

Facebook Sherina Shamdasani

In this episode, Leyla Naghizada shares how she decided it was time to move on from Luxy Hair to explore and discover her true calling.

Leyla used to be a part of a popular YouTube Hair Channel and was a founding partner of Luxy Hair Extensions along with her sister Mimi and Mimi’s husband Alex. Leyla is now going through a spiritual awakening journey and is allowing life to lead her to her destiny, the first step of which will be starting a podcast that is intended to inspire and empower people to heal, awaken and elevate their consciousness through mindfulness, meditation, and assist others in making the transition from fear (head) to love (heart). Essentially this podcast will be a hub for all things Practical Spirituality for the Modern Day.

You can find Leyla on Instagram @realleyla where she shares insight into her spiritual awakening while guiding others on theirs. She will soon be launching her new website beingluca.co and her podcast will be available on her RealLeyla youtube channel. 

www.beingluca.co

www.instagram.com/real_leyla 

www.youtube.com/realleyla