“Paint Me in Patience” In the Silence of Tawakkul
A story of extreme emotional pain but No bitterness.
Story One
Chapter One: The Meeting of Two Paths
The city had just emerged from monsoon showers, its streets shining like silver ribbons. Dr. Aaliya Rahman, a psychologist, adjusted her satchel as she stepped out of her car and looked toward the retreat center nestled on the hillside. She was known among her colleagues for her ability to listen with precision, dissecting the architecture of human thought, yet she often felt something was missing — something that words alone could not reach.
Inside the retreat hall, Saif Qureshi prepared his brushes and instruments. A therapeutic artist and healer, Saif worked with silence, sound, and color. He believed every soul carried unspoken stories that paint could reveal, and that healing began not with explanation but with surrender. His clients often left sessions lighter, though they couldn’t explain why.
When Aaliya walked in, Saif looked up, his presence calm but grounding.
“You must be Dr. Aaliya,” he said.
“And you must be the artist who heals with silence,” she replied with a polite smile.
He chuckled softly. “Or with patience. Silence is just the canvas.”
They sat across from one another. For a moment, the room held only the rhythm of raindrops dripping from the roof. Both sensed they were about to begin something neither could do alone.
Chapter Two: The First Patient
Their first client together was Yusra, a woman whose trauma had left her carrying an invisible weight. She walked into the room as though the floor itself might collapse beneath her.
Aaliya began carefully, her tone soft but structured. “Tell me, Yusra, where do you feel your pain?”
Yusra pressed her hand against her chest. “Here. Always here. Like a stone pressing me down.”
Saif slid a blank canvas toward her and handed her a brush. “Let that stone speak. No need for words. Just colors.”
Yusra hesitated, but dipped the brush in red. Harsh strokes slashed across the canvas, uneven and jagged. Her breath quickened with every stroke.
“Notice the heaviness,” Aaliya said gently. “You’re safe here. You don’t have to push it away.”
Saif leaned closer, his voice steady. “Now choose another color. Let it stand with the red. Not to erase it — just to sit beside it.”
Yusra picked blue. The strokes softened, winding through the red like water threading fire. Her breathing slowed. Her hand stopped trembling.
For the first time, she whispered through tears: “I didn’t want to erase it. I let it stay… and I’m still here.”
Aaliya wrote the words down slowly, while Saif simply nodded, as if he had been waiting for them.
Chapter Three: The Dialogue
After Yusra left, the silence between Aaliya and Saif was heavy but not uncomfortable.
“In psychology,” Aaliya said, closing her notebook, “we call this exposure and integration. Facing trauma without denial. But what I saw… it felt deeper. Almost spiritual.”
Saif cleaned the brushes, his fingers stained with color. “That’s tawakkul. Trusting that every wound has its place in the larger painting. Healing isn’t about erasing — it’s about allowing.”
Aaliya paused, humbled. “I’ve always kept faith out of the room. Afraid it would complicate the science.”
He looked at her steadily. “And yet, faith lives in silence. You saw how she softened the moment she stopped fighting. That’s not science alone — that’s surrender.”
She didn’t argue. She only wrote a single word at the bottom of her notes: Patience.
Chapter Four: Aaliya’s Inner Battle
That night, Aaliya couldn’t sleep. She thought about her own life — the clinical walls she had built around herself. Her father, a man of deep faith, used to tell her: “Healing is not in your hands, Aaliya. You only guide. The Healer is One.”
But years of academic training had taught her to rely on the measurable, the observable. Saif’s presence unsettled her — because it reminded her of the parts of herself she had buried: her own yearning for surrender, for tawakkul.
She realized she wasn’t just working with Saif. She was being healed in the process.
Chapter Five: Saif’s Story
During one late evening, while cleaning the art space, Saif shared a fragment of his past.
“I wasn’t always a healer,” he confessed, his eyes distant. “I used to drown myself in noise — work, distractions, anything to escape the silence. Then I lost someone… someone I loved deeply. Her absence tore me apart.”
Aaliya listened quietly.
“One day, I sat in front of a canvas, and all I could do was paint black circles. Over and over. Until I realized the darkness wasn’t leaving. But it wasn’t killing me either. It just… belonged. That was the day I understood patience. Healing wasn’t in fighting pain. It was in sitting with it, until God gave it meaning.”
Aaliya felt something shift in her chest. For the first time, she saw not just a healer but a man who had bled, and who had chosen gentleness instead of bitterness.
Chapter Six: Sessions of Silence
Over the following weeks, Aaliya and Saif created a rhythm:
- She would guide clients into awareness with careful dialogue, naming emotions that had been buried.
- He would place a canvas, a drum, or a bowl of pigments before them, allowing expression without words.
Their clients painted, cried, prayed, and rested. Some sessions ended in silence, others in tears, and a few in fragile laughter.
And each time, Aaliya realized that patience wasn’t passive waiting — it was active trust. Tawakkul wasn’t about ignoring wounds — it was about placing them in hands greater than theirs.
Chapter Seven: The Garden
One evening, after a long day of sessions, they sat in the retreat garden. The call to prayer echoed from a nearby mosque, drifting softly over the hills. The sky was streaked with violet and gold.
Aaliya looked up. “Do you ever feel helpless, Saif? That no matter what we do, it’s never enough?”
“All the time,” he admitted. “But helplessness is a gift. It reminds us we’re lanterns, not the sun. We hold the light, but the Source isn’t ours.”
Her eyes softened. “Then maybe this is what therapy should be — not fixing people, but sitting with them in silence, until tawakkul paints them whole again.”
Chapter 1: When Paths Cross!
Story two
The artist had never believed much in therapy. As a spiritual healer himself, he had always leaned on faith, meditation, and silence to soothe the cracks in his soul. But that day, something in him whispered that it was time to see what science had to say about healing.
He opened the glass door to the quiet therapy room, clutching his journal in one hand. The faint scent of lavender floated through the air, and soft light fell through half-closed blinds. Sitting at a wooden desk was a woman — the therapist — who looked up and met his gaze with a calm smile.
“Welcome,” she said simply, standing to shake his hand. Her voice was warm, but there was an unspoken strength behind it, like the steady weight of the earth.
For a moment, he just stood there, noticing her presence — the kind of presence that made the air feel less heavy. He introduced himself: an artist, a photographer, someone who spent his life capturing fleeting beauty but lately had tired capturing beautiful face and he liked to capture nature because nature has peace
“And you?” he asked quietly, sitting across from her.
“I’m a therapist,” she replied with a small shrug. “And a listener, mostly. Someone who believes in quiet more than noise. I help people find their way back to themselves.”
Something in those words disarmed him.
At first, the conversation was polite and measured — the usual questions and answers. Why are you here? How do you feel? What are you looking for? He told her about his restlessness, his insomnia, his constant ache to create and yet never feel complete. She listened, occasionally nodding, sometimes gently challenging him, her eyes steady and kind.
But minutes turned into hours.
They talked about his art, about how colors spoke to him in ways words never could. He asked about her work, how she stayed so composed while carrying the weight of other people’s pain. She laughed — the first time he heard her laugh — and admitted she often walked barefoot in her garden at night just to feel real.
When the session ended, neither of them moved right away. There was something left hanging in the air, something unspoken but undeniable.
That evening, he found himself thinking of her quiet confidence, the way she seemed to understand even the things he hadn’t said aloud.
And then his phone buzzed.
It was a message from him:
"If you’d like to talk more, sometimes it helps to continue the conversation beyond the room. No obligation."
she hesitated only a second before replying:
"Yes. I’d like that."
What started as an exchange of thoughtful messages became hours-long conversations over the phone and on messages — about healing, about grief, about the strange ways people come undone and stitch themselves back together.
They spoke late into the night, their voices soft in the darkness, as though sharing secrets with the stars. They laughed about little things — her love of old poetry, his obsession with sunsets — and sometimes they fell into comfortable silence that felt more intimate than words.
It was supposed to be about therapy, but something deeper was already at work.
Each call left him feeling lighter, yet more tangled inside. He couldn’t tell if she felt it too, but he caught himself smiling at his phone whenever her name lit up the screen.
Somewhere between the therapy room and those midnight calls, destiny quietly began to weave its thread through them.
What neither of them realized then was that the first step toward healing was not about fixing what was broken — it was about meeting someone who saw you exactly as you were.
And she did.
And for the first time in years, he felt seen.
Chapter 2: Tea with the Inner Child
“Between sips of tea, stories unfold — a quiet ceremony where strangers become familiar, and hearts begin to speak.
The artist had been thinking about her since that night.
Not constantly, not obsessively — but in the quiet moments, she slipped into his mind like the faint scent of rain on warm stone. The way she sat at the edge of the room during their friend’s gathering, listening more than speaking, her eyes darting between the laughter and the door — that stayed with him.
She had a presence he couldn’t photograph. Not yet.
So, he found himself driving to the same neighborhood a few evenings later, telling himself it was nothing more than tea. Just tea.
He texted her — If you’re free, would you join me? Just chai. No noise. No crowd. Just us. No expectations.
The dots blinked for a long time. Then came her reply:
Fine. But don’t make it heavy.
By the time he pulled up outside the house where she was finishing a friend’s dinner, the rain had already begun. She slipped into the passenger seat with a faint smile, clutching her shawl close.
He didn’t say much. Just handed her a napkin to wipe her damp hands and drove.
They stopped at a roadside tea stall. He stepped out into the drizzle, ordered two cups of chai thick with cardamom, and came back to the car where she was staring out into the rain.
Instead of starting the engine again, he set the cups down, switched off the headlights, and let the car become their little island — lit only by the faint gold of a streetlamp.
She finally glanced at him, eyebrow arched.
“Why the car?”
He shrugged, a faint grin on his eyes
“Cafés have too many ears. Cars are safer for certain conversations. No audience. Just rain.”
She held her tea in both hands, still guarded.
He took a sip of his, watching her quietly, before he spoke.
“I wanted to see you again,” he said.
“Because there’s something about you… I can’t quite name yet. But I keep thinking about it. About you. About the part of you you’re not letting anyone see.”
Her laugh was sharp, though her hands tightened around her cup.
“My inner child? That’s what you want to see?”
He nodded once, calm and sure.
She shook her head, looking away.
“No one can handle her,” she said flatly.
“She’s loud. Broken. Sad. Too much of everything. I let her out once, and people ran. Everyone runs. Why would you stay?”
Her words hung in the car, heavy but fragile.
He set his tea down, leaned back into his seat, and — for the first time — let out a quiet breath.
“Then don’t tell me yet,” he said gently.
“Let me go first.”
She frowned faintly, surprised.
He didn’t look at her as he spoke. Just out at the rain, his voice low and even.
“My inner child hides behind my camera. Pretends to be strong because people expect it. But he’s scared you’ll see how small he really feels. Scared of being forgotten. Invisible.
When I was a boy, he loved colors and stories — but people laughed. Told him to grow up. So he hid. And he poured himself into photographs where no one could touch him.
But he’s still there. Waiting. Hoping someone will say: It’s okay. You can come out now.”
He glanced at her then, his eyes steady, though his hands trembled slightly where they rested on his knees.
She stared at him for a long moment, silent.
And then — as the rain slid down the windows and the chai grew cooler in her hands — she whispered, almost to herself:
“Maybe… maybe she wouldn’t mind meeting him.”
The artist smiled faintly. Not triumphant. Not relieved.
Just… patient.
They sat there a little longer, in their quiet island of rain and cardamom, not saying much more.
And though she didn’t notice it yet, he did — the smallest crack in her walls, letting in the first soft beam of light.
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Chapter 3: Voices Between the Silence!
Chapter 3: Voices Between the Silence
The artist didn’t plan it.
At least, not at first.
It was only after that night in the car — the rain, the tea, the quiet admission of their hidden children — that something began to take shape in his mind. A way for them to speak without walls, a space big enough for both of their voices, yet intimate enough to remain theirs.
A podcast.
It came to him one morning as he sat in his studio, tinkering with an old microphone and listening to the sound of static crackling in his headphones. He thought of how her voice had trembled at first but steadied when she whispered that maybe her child wouldn’t mind meeting his.
So he sent her another message.
This time, shorter, lighter:
You’ve got something to say. So do I. Let’s say it. Together. Over a podcast. A series. You and me. We can design it however we want.
She didn’t reply immediately. But later that evening, she called him — which surprised him — and her voice was curious, but also cautious.
“A podcast?” she asked, as if testing the word.
“Yes,” he said simply. “Not interviews. Not noise. Just… conversations. About the children we hide. The things we carry. Whatever feels real.”
There was a long pause before she spoke again.
“I’ve done a few before,” she admitted softly. “Special series. Mental health. Healing. People said… I did them well.”
The artist smiled into the receiver, though she couldn’t see it.
“I don’t doubt that for a second,” he said.
They met a few days later at his studio. He’d already set the stage: a wooden table, two microphones, warm lamps casting a gentle glow. A kettle whistled softly in the corner, filling the room with the familiar scent of chai.
She walked in with quiet confidence this time — different from the woman who’d curled into herself in his car. She even smiled as she adjusted her chair and tested the microphone.
“You’ve really planned this,” she said, teasing lightly.
He shrugged, pretending not to care.
“It’s just a table,” he replied. “The real show starts with your voice.”
And it did.
Once they began recording, she came alive in a way that stunned him. Her words flowed — thoughtful, deliberate, yet full of warmth and clarity. She spoke of pain and hope without flinching, of the children we hide and the ones we slowly learn to hold.
Her voice had a way of softening even the hardest truths, and listeners — if they could have heard her that night — would have felt as though she were speaking just to them.
The artist sat opposite her, listening, occasionally adding his own stories, his own quiet questions. But mostly, he watched her — the way she leaned into the microphone, the way her hands moved when she spoke, the way her eyes sometimes shimmered when she forgot to guard them.
When they finally switched off the recorder hours later, she leaned back in her chair and exhaled, as if she’d just set down a heavy suitcase.
“I’d forgotten,” she murmured, “how much I liked this.”
He smiled faintly, closing his notebook.
“And?” he asked.
“And what?” she replied.
“Would you…,” he paused, choosing his words carefully, “do this with me? Make it a series. Not just tonight — but something that belongs to both of us?”
She didn’t answer right away. But she didn’t look away either.
Finally, she gave him the faintest nod, a soft grin curving her lips.
“Alright,” she said. “Let’s tell our stories. One episode at a time.”
And as they sat there in the quiet afterglow of what they’d created, the artist couldn’t help but think:
Sometimes the most beautiful art wasn’t something you could capture with a lens.
Sometimes it was a voice, cracking just enough to let the light through.
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