Sathana WRITTEN in Tamil : meaning achievement & spiritual practice

Oh heyyy! My name is Sathana Panneer Selvam.

I am the child of Tamil immigrants. My parents immigrated from Tamil Nadu, to Ireland to the US. I was born in the US. Fun fact, my family name comes from the Tamil freedom fighter, Sir AT Pannirselvam.

What inspired you to do hypnotherapy?

I got into hypnotherapy as a client first. I did psychotherapy and CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) in college for PTSD and didn’t really see long term results. A family friend told me to try hypnotherapy with her therapist, Ishita. I did hypnotherapy virtually with Ishita in Mumbai and actually It helped me heal from PTSD and a chronic illness that doctors had been deemed incurable, endometriosis. Ishita is now my mentor.  

I went to school for hypnotherapy. I did two hypnotherapy programs., one in the US and one based out of the UK.  

I started seeing Tamil clients, and dealt with a lot of racism for talking about Tamils and Tamil mental health from white mentors operating on racist policy in schools – who were psychotherapist and hypnotherapists 

I wanted a space center around a “mango jungle story” the stories of our bb mangoes, our ancestors, Tamils, and the people who have been erased.

I wanted a therapy space to talk about it what it means to be Tamil, what it means to be a minority within a minority.

In sharing my story, many other people from marginalized communities, including people who are Tamil, black, Latino, Chinese, Filipino, Telegu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Dalit and/or transgender, gay, queer, have resonated with these stories and come to our jungle for mango therapy. They are our jungle bbs.

I’ve been decolonizing my own practice and building it on anti-racist and anti casteist policy to help provide healing and empowerment to communities that have been marginalized.