Haran Singham On Overcoming Trauma And Helping Others Find Fulfilment

Haran Singham is a dedicated counsellor and coach with 15+ years of expertise. His mission is to help people uncover clarity, joy, and fulfilment, empowering them to lead purposeful lives and unlock their true potential in both personal and professional spheres.

Haran embarked on his path after a personal struggle with depression and suicidal thoughts alongside the challenges of growing up in Sri Lanka during the civil war & coming to Australia as a refugee.

After committing deeply to his personal growth & overcoming his challenges, he made the courageous decision to transition from his accounting job to become a compassionate counsellor and resilience coach. Haran's coaching and training programs are designed to empower individuals enabling them to regain control of their lives and foster personal growth and success. His work goes beyond professional development, equipping individuals with the tools to navigate stress, anxiety, and trauma & create meaningful transformation.

Haran discusses how his personal growth journey has been a profound catalyst for his work and his passion for people to have transformational tools so they can move the needle.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Sarah Ripper] - To start off, can you please share a bit about your background and what led you to where you are today?

[Haran Singham] - I came to Australia as a refugee. When I arrived here, I couldn't speak English properly, so I was thinking about whether to get into engineering or accounting so I wouldn't have to worry too much about writing essays or assignments! I got into accounting because of one of my uncles who lives here. He told me to do accounting because it was in demand. When I arrived here, because of the war I couldn’t finish my year 12 education. When I arrived in Australia, I went straight to TAFE. For people in other parts of the world, TAFE is pretty much like college. In America, they call it college, and in some other parts of the world they call it 'technical college'. I'm not quite sure how they call it in other parts of the world, however, I went to university from there. I studied my accounting degree and got into accounting jobs. But during that time, the trauma I went through from my childhood started manifesting. I started cutting myself; all I wanted to do was just kill myself because I was so miserable. On the outside I was smiling, and no one knew for a long time. I struggled to get out of the house; I would often stay in my room and just lie down hoping I would never wake up. That's how I lived for three years. A few of my close friends saw how I was feeling.

Coming from Sri Lanka, reaching out to a psychologist or psychiatrist was all new to me and I didn't even know anything about it. One of my friends asked me, “Why don't you go and talk to a GP [General Practitioner]? They can probably refer you to a psychologist or someone who can help." I started getting help, but it didn't help me. I was on medication walking around like a zombie, nothing helped me. I remember I was working for Telstra, and during this time one of my colleagues told me she used to go to a meditation class. She said, “why don't you come to meditation class with me?" I went to meditation class with her, and I saw life coach advertising for coaching there. I thought to myself let's try this as well. I've tried everything, nothing worked for me, so why not try this as well. I'm glad I started seeing her. After that I stopped feeling suicidal, I stopped feeling depressed and I stopped cutting myself. My mood in the past was up and down all the time. I stopped feeling moody, and I was a totally changed person. That's when I realised this is so powerful; I want to do this for my career. I started getting into counselling because I wanted to get into mainstream work. I studied counselling and then coaching as well. For more than 15 years, this is what I have been doing, and on the side, I also wanted to become a monk. I went through that journey as well, studying from different teachers and gurus. I was going through that journey as well, and although I never became a monk, I learned a lot of things traveling around the world and learning from so many different people. What I realised is that even wanting to become a monk is me wanting to serve and help people come out of their own misery.

I want to help people realise they can live a happy and fulfilled life and they don't have to struggle. Yes, there will be challenges. However, how we approach that challenge, how we face each roadblock in our life doesn't have to cause you misery.

It doesn't have to cause you depression or any mental health issues. That's my understanding anyway, because of my own journey and working with people for more than 15 years. This is what I strongly believe in, and this is what I'm passionate about.

You’re trained as a counsellor, coach, yoga teacher, and in other allied health modalities, can you share with us a few powerful key learnings you've had over the years?

It's very hard to give you a key learning. Because I'm 44 years old, within the last 44 years I have learned a lot and have gone through so much trauma. You can tick all the above in terms of trauma because I've went through all of them; whether it's war trauma, sexual abuse, domestic violence, or torture. It's very difficult for me to just say, "this is my learning." But what I've realised is that life happens for all of us. We are going to face all sorts of different hurdles in our life. However, there's always a way. If we lose hope, then we can't change our life. But when we hold onto hope and reach out for help, there's always a way. I believe it's important to share these experiences, because people face certain challenges in their life and lose hope.

Going through all this trauma throughout my life, I now see all the pain I went through. I strongly see, feel, and believe that these experiences are a power for me now. I turned my pain into power, and that's exactly what I do with my clients when I'm working with them.

It's not just about simply sitting down and talking about problems with people. It’s instead about specifically working through challenges they have gone through to design a life they desire using certain strategies and techniques to help people let go of the past trauma.

When I was going to see a psychologist or psychiatrist, it was all about how my brain was chemically imbalanced so I must take medication. Then, the psychologist would sit down and talk about all the trauma I went through and all the problems I was struggling with in my life. The thing is, there are tools and techniques available that not many people aware of. I learned all these tools because I realised there are ways to come out of our own suffering, pain, and everything we go through. But the important thing is to reach out for help. Finding the right person is very important as well; like I said, I reached out to so many other people through traditional courses of action. How I was getting traditional therapy never helped me, and I see a lot of clients like that as well.

You work in schools, with the elderly, organisations and individuals. What impact do you see coming out of the work you're doing?

One of the things is awareness. Even though nowadays people talk about mental health, depression and all sorts of other stuff, a lot of people don't have awareness about mental health. I don't like to call it mental health, I like to call it mind management. This is something I learned from Caroline Leaf. She's a neuroscientist and she say it's important we acknowledge it's not a mental health issue, it's a mind management issue. I believe that as well, so when I was doing workshops at school, I was talking about brainwave frequencies, sleep, meditation, and mindfulness. When I'm working with senior citizens, because I'm also a certified yoga teacher, I give them some tools, and then teach them a little bit of yoga and meditations. Then with organisations, I help businesses build their teams and introduce emotional and cultural intelligence.

A lot of people and organisations still follow the old model that doesn't work; the boss comes and tells you this is what you need to do, and then everyone must do it. The new model is all about understanding fulfilling each other’s needs, then they will fulfil the organisation’s needs.

That's something I'm very passionate about because this is a part of human behaviour as well.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

I'm reading Power Vs. Force by Dr. David Hawkins now. He's a psychiatrist who has a holistic approach to everything about mindset and life. I just started reading it and I would probably recommend it because I'm loving it. I also like Dr. Joe Dispenza; he was a chiropractor, and he is now a neuroscientist. I love all his books; You Are the Placebo is one of my favourites. Caroline Leaf is a neuroscientist as well. I’m talking about a lot of psychiatrists and neuroscientists, but I think because of my background I love reading books from people who are into brain science, psychology, and spirituality as well. I like people who have a holistic approach rather than just medicating people. My all-time favourite book is Think and Grow Rich. I can talk about books all day because there are so many I love and would recommend, but it's also dependent on what books you are into as well. I love Deepak Chopra, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Dale Carnegie, and like I mentioned, Caroline Leaf. I like the way she explains things. She's very much not about medicating people, so that's something that I love about her as well.