Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019 Page 47and moved to Canada in the late
Seventies. Her mum Rita worked
in IT strategy, and her father,
whom she doesn’t want to name,
was a mechanical engineer.
In public, her father hid his
abusive behaviour well. ‘He was a
soccer coach, he gave a group of
us kids maths classes,’ she says.
‘You would never know. Even whenmy mum decided to leave him, a
lot of people said: “Why? He’s such
a nice man”.’
But looking back the level of
control behind closed doors was
disturbing. ‘He wouldn’t let mum
go to the shops or travel for work.
He would record her phone calls.’
In December 1996, after 22 years
of marriage, her mother handedhim divorce papers and told him
to leave the house.
He moved into a friend’s base-
ment ten minutes away. ‘He would
come over pretty much every day,
but his behaviour was unpredict-
able,’ she says.
Some days he would do the
dishes — something he never did
during their entire marriage — tellher he was sorry and beg to be
allowed back.
‘The next he would be standing
behind her car, not letting her go
to work, yelling: “You stupid b***h!
You aren’t going to get away
with this!” I think that’s why it
took so long for her to leave him.
She was scared.’
But she never thought he woulddo what he did. The immediate
aftermath was unbearable,
particularly at school. Despite a
supportive group of friends, ‘I felt
embarrassed, judged,’ Nina says.
By contrast, she loved university
in Ontario, where she studied
business and psychology, because
‘nobody knew’.
She dealt with her father by
pretending he didn’t exist. ‘I’d say
he passed away.’ In the same way
she almost never talked about
Vijay. ‘If someone asked if I had a
sibling, I’d mostly answer no.’
Life flourished despite it all —
but her unconscious often threw
her back into the past. ‘I would
have really bad nightmares.’
Father’s Day cards in the super-
market aisle would trigger
paralysing emotions of anger and
sadness. A mention of her
brother’s favourite basketball
team would bring back all the pain
of the original bereavement.
She had professional help from
psychologists and a grief counsel-
lor, but most healing of all was the
mindfulness she began more than
20 years ago, inspired by her ‘spir-
itual’ mother. But things really
changed in 2010 when she put her
career on hold and moved with
her husband to Northern Califor-
nia to take a one-year course at
the Chinmaya Vedanta Centre,
which teaches Hindu spirituality.
‘I completely unplugged — no
phone, internet, TV, friends. Just
us, the teachings, and the red
woods. Not having day-to-day
distractions and being immersed
in nature forced me to deal with
everything I suppressed. Memo-
ries and feelings would come up
that I hadn’t thought of or felt in
years. Sometimes this would
result in tears and sometimes in
life-changing “ah-ha moments”.’L
IFE threatened to
unravel again in 2012
when her mother was
diagnosed with a type of
motor neurone disease, and died
at just 61, in 2014, when Nina was
pregnant. ‘I was like, are you kid-
ding me? It’s not fair. I thought,
surely I’ve already paid my dues?’
Then, in 2015, Nina read an
article about a girl who forgave
her father. ‘She said: “I’m not
forgiving what you did. I am
forgiving you for the sake of me.”
Something clicked in me. I
thought, I need to forgive him.
‘That’s the only way I am going
to be able to let go of all this anger
and resentment I have carried
around for 20 years.’ She now
thinks her father must have been
ill. ‘He obviously had depression,
and some personality disorder. He
could have been a narcissist.’
It’s taken a long time, but some-
thing has finally shifted. ‘I feel
lighter, calmer, happier.’
She says she used to dread the
month of May: May 22 is the anni-
versary; May 28 her brother’s birth-
day. ‘I’d feel really down. I remem-
ber that day, of course, but I don’t
see it as a massive tragedy any
more. Instead, I see it as I wouldn’t
be who I am if that didn’t happen.
I wouldn’t have had the tenacity to
dig deeper into what life is about.’
Vijay would be 33 this year. And
for the first time ever, his team,
the Toronto Raptors, won the
NBA title, the basketball equiva-
lent of the Premier League. Nina
watched the game on TV dressed
in the jacket Vijay wore to
matches, which had been hanging
in her wardrobe for 22 years.
She says that when she used to
think of Vijay it was always in
terms of tragedy. But sitting there,
knowing how happy he’d be to
watch the game, she was able
to remember him as he always
was: ‘My incredible little brother.’
O Let that Sh*t Go: Find Peace
Of Mind And Happiness In Your
everyday by Nina Purewal and
Kate Petriw is published by
HarperCollins £9.99.When Nina was 16, her father
killed her little brother and himself.
Incredibly, 20 years after this
unimaginable horror she decided
to forgive him. Here, she reveals...
when life
deals the
cruellest
card of all
supermarket an exercise in
training your observing mind, by
focusing on every action you do.
‘I am walking to the dairy aisle
for milk; now to fruit and veg; I’m
opening this bag and putting five
apples in. That one’s too bruised.’
I promise it’s the most calming
thing you can do.Relinquish control
TAKE a moment to think about
how your family perceives you.
Your husband adores yourcan-do attitude; your teenage
daughter thinks you’re a tyrant.
Your mother has an issue with
you working full-time. You’ll
realise everyone has a different
perception of you — and that’s
OK. You can’t control it!Make time for stress
ONE way to work through stress
is to allocate time for it — set a
timer for 30 minutes and
complain to your heart’s content.
Call a friend or talk to yourpartner about the colleague who
messed up, or the friend who
snubbed you. When the timer
goes off, go back to enjoying life.Relaxing is NOT lazy!
TOO often, we feel we have to be
productive all the time, even on
days off. But make time to do
nothing. Relaxing is productive.
It helps slow your breathing,
relaxes muscles and contributes
to repairing your system. Listen
to music, take a nap, read a bookor just sit around in your PJs. It’s
not ‘lazy’, it has real value.And... breathe
ALL YOU need is 15 seconds. You
could be anywhere — at the bus
stop, in your chair at work or
making dinner. Wherever you
are: take a deep breath, one that
you’re actually aware of. When
you have negative emotions such
as anger or worry, your breath-
ing becomes shallower. Deeper
breathing helps you to cope.NINA’S ADVICE ON ACHIEVING INNER PEACE
How to find
happiness
Picture LEZLI + ROSE/Hair and make-up: JULIE COOPER AT NYLON ARTISTS. NINA WEARS BLAZER, £199,TROUSERS, £119, HOBBS.CO.UK