Since the beginning of 2023, I am learning a lot of new things that giving me a chance to shape my thoughts. Not only forming new shapes of dreams and aspirations, but I am also seeing new sides of life.

All thanks to my trauma which keeps coming to me every now and then, and after every attack, I keep sobbing my pain and journaling my thoughts so that I can get an idea of the root cause of my trauma and try something new to heal myself.

Conversations and Community have been two essential tools that helped me heal. Not completely, you may wonder, but yes, they helped me to cultivate a sense of belongingness, and feel surrounded by like-minded people. Some of them have become my friends and there are some gems of people whom I proudly call my well-wishers. They keep asking me about my whereabouts, and they are as worried as me when I inform them about my bad phase, they try to make me understand the positive side of life, and the meaning of hope, and I am privileged to have them in my life.

All this started with a small conversation. After being isolated from the mainstream of life for many years, when I came to know the Blogchatter community, I felt at home.

After many years, I felt at home with people.

– Swarnali Nath

Soon, I realized what it means by the power of community. A community is not only a gathering of like-minded people, but it serves a bigger purpose to mankind. A community can protect and promote its culture, the heritage. A community can spread awareness of a certain cause and call others to join the noble mission. A community can make an impact by showing the practical examples set by the leaders. A community can teach the true meaning of empathy. A community can bring someone back to the mainstream of life and show the light to a better tomorrow.

A community is always there to tell you what it means to be together by nurturing a sense of togetherness.

– Swarnali Nath

As I started realizing the power of community, I also started realizing the power of conversations when I launched my podcast. Although I have been refraining from recording new episodes of my podcast for more than one year, I had recorded episodes for six to seven months consistently. That practice helped me to recover from my social anxiety.

Thus, I realized the power of narrating our inner dialogue with our audience.

– Swarnali Nath

I love to have meaningful conversations with my friends. Often, I initiate conversations with them on a specific topic and we continue sharing our thoughts, opinions, knowledge, and experiences on the same. In the end, we come to know a lot of new things as well as get a new perspective on that topic.

Sometimes, an idea is born out of a conversation.

– Swarnali Nath

The Peace Stories was born from such a conversation with my two friends, Abhishek and Abhirup. At first, after having conversations with them, I started my initiative with a letter-writing project and named it The Letters Connect. But I was not happy with what I was doing, I was clueless about the aim of my project and thus, I ended up being unproductive for eight months. At that time, I only had a few letters written but I never sent them to my audience.

Then one day, while conversing with my friend Mayuri, a new idea clicked in my mind and I decided on the name of my initiative. Moreover, I envisioned what I want to do with my initiative.

A few weeks ago, my conversation with my friend Rakhi Jayashankar was published on her website as a part of her newly launched WoW Initiative. It was the first time when I talked about my mental health issues, my fights against them, my experiences and my message to the world regarding this stigma. I felt lighter when I opened up about my trauma and other mental health problems that I have been suffering from.

It seemed like someone is there to hear my words, and it helped me feel at peace.

Similarly, a conversation with Dr Surbhi Prapanna helped me introspect my work and it boosted my self-esteem as I talked about my work as a Mindfulness Blogger. At the same time, I had a nice conversation with my friend Sivaranjini on blogging and my journey as a Blogger, that helped me reinvent my blogging process.

Along with these conversations, I have had a lot of other conversations that have opened a new door to something interesting. Sometimes, I healed with an empathetic conversation. Sometimes, I gathered the courage to start anew. Sometimes, I restored my hope in tomorrow. Sometimes, I saw an ordinary thing in a new light to make that an extraordinary one.

Most of the time, a conversation helped me in exploring new sides of peace, purpose, hope, dreams, love, compassion, gratitude, happiness, and many other aspects of life.

– Swarnali Nath

One day, my friend Varsha told me, she is happy to see my growing community of storytellers as she believes it is hard to build a community and she is happy that I have taken the plunge. Her words touched my heart and I found a new purpose in my life.

Building my storytellers community. A community where the storytellers not only share their stories but also share stories of strangers who taught them valuable life lessons. They share their beautiful realizations of life. They share their message to the world. They write letters to their younger selves. They write notes on Peace. And they say Thank You, Life, with their gratitude notes.

And it started with a dream to tell stories. Stories of people who have suffered, battled, and conquered. Stories of people who have traveled and met strangers to find their shelter. Stories of people who never get tired of walking on the road of life.

Today, my dream has taken its own shape only because of my community and the impactful conversations with them. This is why, now, I am bringing a new series, combining these two powers together.

Introducing you to the new series on my initiative:

Of Peace and Purpose, bringing together the power of conversations and the power of community.

Stay tuned to join our first guest and know her thoughts on ‘Protecting Your Peace in the Age of Digital Media.’