The Ease Revolution & Alchemy Healing Hub
A trauma-informed movement to shift Dalit lives from survival to dignity and ease. Restoring dignity through nervous-system healing.
Welcome
This blog exists because I am Dalit. Because caste is not only a social hierarchy it is a psychological wound, a nervous system injury, and a generational trauma.
I write to name the pain of being Dalit and to explore what it means to heal it honestly, politically, and without spiritual bypassing. This is an appeal to end the psychology of hatred and to cultivate human dignity, accountability, and unconditional love as a lived nervous system reality.
The Mission
Annihilating caste requires emotional, psychological, and nervous system liberation — not only political change. We are here to free Dalit bodies from survival mode.
The Ease Revolution
A collective movement to free Dalit bodies from survival and restore dignity through nervous-system healing. We aim to shift lives from survival mode to a state of dignity and ease.
Why This Matters
To see Dalit mothers free from survival burdens — able to rest and love without exhaustion. We work to end cycles of scarcity, anxiety, and panic for this generation.
Alchemy Healing Hub
A sacred, structured space where transformation is practised slowly, safely, and together. A healing space where caste trauma is named, held, and transformed without bypassing.
Dalit Alchemy (MHI)
Naming the pain of being Dalit and exploring healing from within Dalit lived experience itself. Research-based mechanisms to heal generational trauma.
My Approach
Bridging academic knowledge with lived experiences using Trauma-informed Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Caste Studies, and Body-Based Understandings of Trauma.
Why This Matters To Me
I want to see Dalit mothers free from survival burdens — able to rest, to receive, to love without exhaustion. Caste did not just structure society — it structured our nervous systems.
MY REAL STORY — HOW THIS WORK WAS BORN
With the fact that I did a Ph.D., I was earning well, and yet I was unable to feel at ease.
Every day, I woke up anxious and overwhelmed by the thought of finishing everything the day had in store for me, as if it were an emergency. This was the only state I could remember.
When I was at MHI, I was offered a Mental Health allowance. There was no need to explain what therapy I would take. No need to reveal my mental health unease. No need to show a prescription or doctor’s certificate. That kind of trust was a luxury I had never known.
I applied for that support and entered into a transformation process. That process helped me understand my character and my behaviour patterns. I began to see how different parts of my personality acted differently in different areas of life. My responses were not fixed — they were shaped by context, memory, fear, and survival.
I started looking deep inside and outside myself. I wanted to change many of my responses to the outer world. But I could not change them fully. There were always hurdles.
Over the years, I went through:
- Five Vipassana courses
- One Satipatthana
- One seva course
- Psychiatric treatment
- Ayurveda, acupuncture, and homeopathy — all at once — saving myself from allopathy
I reached a milestone of “balance.”
Yet even after all of this, the unease did not leave.
And then the real transformation began.
That process started uncovering how my personalities, characteristics, and behaviours had developed in response to life traumas — to cope, to survive, to protect.
That is when I realised something deeply unsettling and freeing at the same time:
My nervous system had been shaped from the womb and through life by being born a black, Dalit, rural, Marathi-speaking woman.
I had worked as a Dalit woman human rights defender.
I was an Ambedkarite, Buddhist, and feminist.
When I began recalling my own interactions and the lives of those around me, I saw that everyone was carrying the same invisible wound. That is why even after attaining the highest positions, economic safety, and social power, the emotional state remained the same.
The positions changed.
The trauma did not.
That is when I knew:
This pain must be named.
DALIT ALCHEMY — NAMING THE PAIN
I got my proposal sanctioned with the MHI leadership team and established the ‘Dalit Alchemy’ initiative — to name the pain of being Dalit and to explore healing from within Dalit lived experience itself.
Through collaboration with MHI Dalit Partners, I conducted in-depth research titled:
“Naming the Pain and Discovering User-Centric Mechanisms to Heal the Generational Trauma of Being a Dalit”
(Soon to be published by MHI)
From this work emerged multiple research-based writings, including:
- “Understanding the Trauma of Being Dalit: Mariwala Health Initiative’s Dalit Alchemy”
- “Naming the Pain, Recording the Crime: Dalit Alchemy and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act”
- “The Body Keeps the Score: Dalit Pain, Denied Justice, and Generational Trauma”
- “Naming the Pain: Dalit Literature, Generational Trauma, and the Healing Praxis of Dalit Alchemy”
- “Naming the Pain: Dalit Lived Experience, Generational Trauma, and Embodied Healing”
- “Vipassana, Dalit Trauma, and Dalit Alchemy: An Integrative Approach to Embodied Awareness and Social Liberation”
- “Integrating Historical, Psychological, and Biological Perspectives: A Multi-Layered Understanding of Dalit Generational Trauma”
- “The Unspoken Wounds: A Psychological Analysis of Dalit Trauma through Epigenetics, Generational Memory, and Liberation Psychology”
- “Naming the Pain: The Lost Faculty of Agency and the Fragmented Self in Dalit Experience”
- “The Lesson of Humiliation: A Curriculum of Being Less.”
(All to be published by MHI.)
NEW BEGINNING — EASE REVOLUTION & ALCHEMY HEALING HUB
I reached a point where I knew I had to take this work forward independently.
31st December is my last day at MHI.
On 6th December, my heartfelt salute to Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, I chose my new beginning — the Ease Revolution and Alchemy Healing Hub.
This personal blog carries that legacy forward.
This is a space to:
And reclaim dignity as a birthright
Love and accept yourself unconditionally
Speak truths without apology
Heal without bypassing
My Approach
My writing and practice are shaped by Trauma-informed Psychology, Liberation Psychology, Caste Studies, and Body-Based Understandings of Trauma.
I bridge academic knowledge with lived experiences to:
- Write with honesty and political clarity.
- Refuse to dilute truth for comfort.
- Keep dignity at the centre.
Dr. Vaishali Vilas Sonavane is the founder of Dalit Alchemy, MHI’s Dalit Mental Health Initiative, and the Alchemy Healing Hub.
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Read Blogs
Survival as Inheritance: The Historical Life of Dalit Women and the Making of Generational Scarcity
(This article examines historically produced survival regimes among Dalit women. Dalit women who have broken these structures and are thriving beyond them will be taken up in a subsequent article.) By Dr. Vaishali Sonavane Abstract This article examines how survival among Dalit women is historically produced, relationally transmitted, and structurally enforced, creating intergenerational patterns of…
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Read Blogs
Integrated Theoretical and Methodological FrameworkPositioning Caste-Based Survival Within Contemporary Trauma Theory
Abstract Contemporary trauma frameworks, such as complex trauma, Disorders of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DESNOS), and Cumulative Trauma Disorder (CTD), have established that psychological distress may arise from prolonged and repeated exposure to harm rather than discrete events. However, these models remain insufficiently theorised in relation to social structures that systematically organise exposure to…
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Read Blogs
When Rejection Becomes Self‑Betrayal
Unpacking the Trauma Trigger and the Path to Alchemical Healing If this feels familiar, you are not broken When someone hates, ridicules, neglects, rejects, demotivates, devalues, disrespects, disconnects, withdraws, becomes difficult, or punishes you for no visible reason, the pain is not only interpersonal. Something deeper happens inside. You don’t just feel hurt — you…
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FAQs
What is the Ease Revolution?
The Ease Revolution is a trauma-informed movement designed to shift Dalit lives from survival mode to dignity. It focuses on healing the nervous system injury caused by caste hierarchy, reclaiming rest and ease not as a privilege, but as a birthright.
Who is this healing work for?
While this work centers on freeing Dalit bodies from survival burdens, it is also a call to everyone. The psychology of caste injures the entire society. We invite anyone willing to cultivate human dignity, accountability, and unconditional love to join this journey.
What is the Alchemy Healing Hub?
A sacred, structured space where transformation is practised slowly, safely, and together. It is a place where caste pain is named and held without bypassing.
How does the Alchemy Healing Hub help in healing?
The Alchemy Healing Hub offers a sacred, structured space to process generational trauma without spiritual bypassing. We use Dalit Alchemy—a blend of psychology and lived experience—to name the pain, hold it safely, and transform it into emotional liberation.