The Power Of Pause

For over three decades, renowned spiritual and holistic healer

Tarrifa has been a trusted guide to royalty, CEOs, and celebrities, helping them navigate their most profound personal challenges.

Now, she brings her unparalleled wisdom and transformative insight exclusively to the readers of Society Magazine.

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As we move through increasingly uncertain and busy times, I believe it’s important to take time to reflect. Through breath, nature, touch, and wisdom rooted in ancient teachings, I want to open a doorway back to ourselves, to stillness.

Growing up in Sri Lanka, I was immersed in a culture where the Vede Mahata, the village practitioner of holistic medicine, was always the first choice when it came to illness or injury.

Even nowadays, holistic medicine coexists with what is referred to as western medicine in Sri Lanka.

That presence shaped my early understanding of wellness as something deeply interconnected and intuitive. Today, I carry this inherited knowledge into my treatments, combining it with formal training to create therapeutic treatments that honour both tradition and the individual needs of each person I support.

One such treatment might involve the use of warm herbal oils, chosen according to the person’s dosha (a concept in Ayurveda that categorizes body-mind types), applied with rhythmic strokes that encourage lymphatic flow and calm the nervous system.

Another may include guided movement or marma point therapy, an ancient technique that activates energy points across the body, gently releasing physical and emotional blockages. These treatments not only address the body, but also ease the mind from the pain it carries.

My approach isn’t prescriptive. There is no one-size-fits-all, no rigid routine. My sessions are responsive, guided by both tradition and intuition, in either individual treatments or bespoke retreats.

Buddha teaches us three things in Vipassana, I often say, referring to his breathing system:

Sati

Sati, often translated as mindfulness, is the practice of being fully here, aware of what is happening in the present moment without judgment.

Samādhi

It is the deep concentration that arises when the mind becomes steady. It’s not forced focus, but a natural settling—like water becoming still when left undisturbed.

Prajñā

Wisdom. Not knowledge from books, but insight born from lived experience and deep inner clarity. It’s the kind of knowing that arises when mindfulness and concentration work together.

These three are key words for deep stillness. However, these aren’t the only methods towards it.

Other tools I use to help achieve this state are deeply rooted in Sri-Lankan Ayurvedic practices, ancient holistic medicine involving diet, exercise, cleansing methods, and the treatments Ayurveda is mainly known for.

Today I would like to reflect on stillness as a key objective of my treatments and holistic practices.

The special thing about the work I create for the person’s treatment is...

I help them to experience stillness.

My path starts with a very ancient and important word in Buddhism:

Dharma.

In simple terms, Dharma refers to the sum of all of Buddha’s teachings, all the knowledge that can help bring us from our current state of confusion and unhappiness to a state of awareness, or, as I like to describe it, stillness.

One of the first tools I share is the breath as a conscious anchor. Through guided breathwork, I teach people to listen to the body’s rhythms, reconnecting with a sense of presence that often gets buried beneath distraction and stress.

From breath, I lead people to nature, as a place to visit to find ourselves. I encourage a deeper kind of connection, one where nature is not outside us, but part of us.

Even if meditation is not your strength, you can find a place, a moment, or a music that will help you connect; this is also a meditation.

Holistic health expert Tarrifa Mahagamage