Farah Therapy Center supports Ramadan Tent Project!
Farah Therapy Centre supports Ramadan Tent Project
FTC is proud to announce our support for Ramadan Tent Project for the second year in a row. We will provide the resources for a full day of Ramadan celebration inside the April/May 2020 fast.
Here’s three reasons why we are supporting this initiative again… and putting our intentions and good wishes behind the wonderful leaders and community at RTP:
When I got to London, Ramadan welcomed me
As some of you will know from the themes we speak about in our blog, moving to a different country can be an uncomfortable experience. The sense of uncertainty that comes with upheaval can lead to feelings of isolation, disconnection and loneliness. All of this manifested in my experience when I landed in London, to live here, for the first time. The thought of making new friends, furthering my studies at a new university, and re-launching my career as a therapist with a new group of clients, was overwhelming at times. And although I see new beginnings as a good thing - there were simply too many happening all in one go! One of my saving graces though was to be able to practice Ramadan in the same way I had done for my whole life. It gave me a sense of the familiar, and a way to orient myself as I felt my way into my new life. It made me feel relaxed that I was a part of something after all, and there were some consistent, and deeply important, themes that had travelled with me from my old life into the new. Knowing that Ramadan was being celebrated globally, and being a part of that ceremony through Ramadan Tent Project, gave me the medicine of community and psycho-social integration that I truly needed.
Ramadan is healthy!
Not many people realise this, but those celebrating Ramadan are lucky to have such a healthy reset to observe each year. First and foremost, fasting is so good for you! The practices of patience, discipline and presence are implicit to Ramadan, and I find they have such a healthy impact on the way I approach food all year round. It’s so easy to slip into habits of living meal-to-meal, and taking the food we eat for granted. Ramadan invites a spiritual approach to eating that builds a healthy relationship with food in general. Added to these deep insights and developments, even though there are a huge number of meals to prepare throughout each Ramadan, it has never been about fast food. There are no fried ingredients throughout the month, and no sugary drinks allowed. Ramamdan is truly a holistic practice, for the mind, heart and belly!
Spiritual reset and alignment with RTP vision & values
There are not many traditional spiritual conventions left that are truly thriving in today’s society. This means that people are receiving less and less reminders of the need to come home, to count our blessings, and to meditate and pray for our loved ones. In contrast to this meta-trend, Ramadan is thriving worldwide, through innovative projects like RTP. While many organised religions are in decay, Ramadan is finding a message for people of all ages and backgrounds that succeeds in bringing communities together on a global basis in the name of spiritual practice and devotion. The RTP leaders have found ways to communicate the essence of Ramadan to a wide audience, and keep this tradition alive and well, and relevant, in modern life. This is a feat that the whole team at FTC respects and wants to be a part of. It is directly aligned with our own philosophy, and a representation of what we want to see happen in the world – whereby more people gather together for spiritual and developmental purposes, creating a future in which the soul can truly flower.