Guest: Rishma Govani
For the last time on this platform, the seats are reversed. Rishma Govani steps into the interviewer role, holding space as Salima shares the untold story that could not be spoken until now — the lived experience of losing her grandmother, losing her mother just twenty days later, and navigating the irreversible shift that followed. This episode does not retell events for shock value. It lingers in the spaces grief inhabits quietly: the hospital rooms where time compresses, the moral rupture of withholding water from someone you love, the weight of asking whether intervention has become prolonging suffering, the moment of recognizing when love means release. Salima speaks candidly about what this loss did to her nervous system, her identity, and her sense of safety. She reflects on surviving surgery updates, advocating through uncertainty, absorbing fear for others, and surrendering control when outcomes were no longer negotiable. She names the loneliness of grieving without a settled space to land, the disorientation of being the steady one while internally unraveling, and the humility of discovering that wisdom does not exempt you from devastation. This is not an episode about closure. It is about the beginning of grief. About integration instead of resolution. About learning to live in a body that now carries absence differently. It is also the final episode of Dare to Share Your Untold Story. Not because the work has ended, but because this chapter has completed what it came here to do. What began years ago as a space for daring and sharing concludes here with reverence — laid down in honour of lineage, timing, and the truth that some endings are acts of integrity. Her key message to the listeners of the show is: Time is precious, so take time to really look at how you’re spending your time, what you’re giving your energy to, and whether it’s actually aligned with what matters most to you in the bigger picture of your life; connect with yourself, connect honestly with your emotions; allow yourself to express what’s true — without malice, but without suppression either; you are allowed to change after what you’ve lived through; you’re allowed to outgrow versions of yourself that once kept you safe; you don’t owe anyone continuity if it costs you truth.
Guest Bio: Salima is a therapist, mental health and wellness specialist, and the founder of Dare to Heal — a clinical practice and platform rooted in helping people reconnect with themselves in honest, compassionate ways. Over the years, her work has expanded beyond the therapy room into leadership spaces, conversations about burnout, and the deeper emotional patterns that shape how we live, work, and lead. She’s also the creator of Mental Beauty — a philosophy that invites full acceptance of the internal world, without judgment, hierarchy, or the need to fix what’s human.
Salima has spent more than two decades working with high-performing professionals across healthcare, education, corporate, and entrepreneurial spaces, blending neuroscience, trauma-informed therapy, and emotional regulation to support sustainable well-being. She is also the host and creator of the Dare to Share Your Untold Story podcast, which began in January 2021 and recently marked its five-year anniversary — a space that has held hundreds of courageous conversations and stories that were ready to be spoken. And today, Salima is here not just to complete this podcast, but to honour what this moment represents — and to step into what comes next.
One of the spaces I am deeply passionate about as this chapter closes is the Dare to ‘Re-Treat’ Movement — a sustainable self-care movement rooted in Mental Beauty and emotionally honest leadership.
This work is about alignment over endurance; about redefining leadership through self-awareness and intentional pause; and about creating immersive spaces where people can reconnect with what truly matters in their lives.
If this podcast has resonated with you, I invite you to explore what’s unfolding next and learn more at: www.daretoretreat.co