A Story So Powerful, It Humbles the Soul

Not Your Typical Island Story

from a podcast with guest: Cyndee Dhalai

Philipp Kobald tried. He really did. With a slow dance of words and that distinct voice of curiosity dipped in compassion, he invited his guest to begin not with scars, but with spices. Food, festivals, and the glorious mosaic of Trinidad and Tobago — this was the opening act. But when your story burns beneath the skin, carnival colours are just the wrapping.

Cyndee Dhalai, poet, survivor, mother, widow, and woman who has wrestled with the void more times than medically advisable, showed up not to perform pain but to gently name it. And to show what happens when you meet life’s hardest chapters with nothing but the willingness to remain kind.

Of Cultures, Curries, and Quiet Rebellions

Before the heaviness, there was warmth. Cyndee’s Trinidadian upbringing, with its multireligious, multiethnic stew, came alive in stories of shared holidays, borrowed traditions, and the joy of diversity. But even in a country famed for its mix, not all blends are blessed.

She spoke of growing up in a Hindu household where questions were unwelcome and friendships with boys could get you labeled everything from “disrespectful” to “shameful.” When she married outside her religion, her family drew a hard line. Silence, the kind that doesn’t come with peace, followed.

Phil listened quietly. Patiently. This wasn’t the place for fast takes.

The Diagnosis That Didn’t Ask Nicely

There’s something cruel about the way illness can turn up uninvited and then have the audacity to stay. For Cyndee, lupus was just the tip of the diagnostic iceberg. What followed was a parade of complex conditions: arthritis, kidney disease, atrophies with unpronounceable names. Her body staged a quiet mutiny. Worse, it stopped responding to medicine. No, scratch that — it rebelled against medicine.

She became allergic to nearly everything. Not in a trendy “I can’t do gluten” way, but in a “this drug might kill me before the disease does” sort of way. And sometimes, it nearly did. She flatlined. More than once. The odds were not just stacked against her — they were building a fortress.

But somehow, she kept returning. Not with a trumpet fanfare. Quietly. Gracefully. With a cane, then a wheelchair, and always, always, with her mind intact.

Acceptance: The Pill They Forgot to Prescribe

What surprised most wasn’t the illness — it was her response. No weeping into hospital pillows. No desperate cries of “Why me?” Just acceptance. Almost too much, according to the psychiatrists she was sent to see. (Five, to be exact. All of whom confirmed she was mentally fine. Possibly more so than anyone in the room.)

She didn’t beg to be healed. She didn’t demand a miracle. She simply decided that if this was the path, she’d walk it — limping, wheeling, crawling if she had to. But she would walk it with love. And oddly, it worked.

Faith, But Not the Kind You’re Expecting

If you’re waiting for a tidy theological label, look elsewhere. Cyndee believes in God — not as a concept in robes, but as something living, breathing, universal. Her God has no brand, no franchise, and no marketing department. And yet, when she speaks of Him, the air seems to soften.

She doesn’t talk about healing as a transaction. There was no bargain struck. No promise made. What she had instead was a feeling — a certainty that life, in all its madness, still wanted her here. That her job wasn’t over. That breath, for as long as it arrived, meant something was still being asked of her.

When Words Became Medicine

Here’s where the miracle lives, if you’re looking: Cyndee writes. When her body failed, her pen didn’t. Poetry poured out, quiet and persistent. Lines written from a bed, from a wheelchair, from a place where most people would retreat into silence. She didn’t retreat. She rhymed.

Philipp, ever the observant host, knew better than to rush this part. He let her speak. Let her tell it slow. Because here was the real lesson for healers: you don’t need to fix people. You need to hear them.

Not the Widow They Expected

Just as her body began to surprise doctors by not dying, life dealt another blow: her husband passed away. Quickly. Unexpectedly. People said the quiet part out loud. “We thought it would be you.” Even family asked why she was still alive.

Yet, even in grief, she found her posture. Her center. Her refusal to be bitter. The lesson wasn’t in surviving the loss — it was in not becoming smaller because of it.

This Isn’t a Comeback Story. It’s a Continuation.

Cyndee doesn’t do triumphalist narratives. She doesn’t end her poems with glittery slogans or motivational hashtags. She ends them with truth. Her book Pieces of Me, Touch My Soul doesn’t just heal — it invites you to be brave enough to sit beside someone who’s faced everything and still chooses softness.

She reminds us, especially those of us in the healing arts, that the real medicine isn’t in the modality. It’s in the mindset. In how we show up. How we choose to stay — present, kind, unafraid — even when the world writes us off.

Let the Poem Speak

And then, just as promised, she read her poem. Not at the end — Philipp hid it mid-conversation to reward those who listened with care.

Her voice didn’t break. It didn’t soar. It just landed, line after line, like soft truths you didn’t know you needed. The kind of poem you don’t applaud — you exhale.

A Suggestion, Not a Sales Pitch

There’s more, of course. More stories, more details, more laughter tucked between the pain. You can find all of it in the full episode of Spiritual Conversation, produced by HolisticCircle and hosted by the ever-curious Philipp Kobald. It’s not a podcast — it’s a presence. And if you’re a healer looking to reconnect with what really matters, it’s a good place to start.

#HolisticCircle #PhilippKobald #CyndeeDhalai #SpiritualConversation #PoetryHealing #TraumaSurvivor #HealingJourney #FaithAndResilience #HealersOfInstagram

By Philipp Kobald in cooperation with AI
www.HolisticCircle.org
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