Dr Tash Reddy and the Art of Becoming… The Woman Who Turned Pain into Purpose

Her life has carried her through motherhood, grief, court battles, trauma recovery and advocacy, yet each chapter has deepened her commitment to helping others—especially women, children and young people—understand that their circumstances do not have to define them. Through her work in trauma, counselling, NLP and online healing conversations, Dr. Reddy has become a voice for those who feel unheard, reminding them that silence can be broken, wounds can be processed, and identity can be rebuilt.

This is the story of a woman who kept going—not because life was easy, but because she chose to turn pain into purpose. It is the story of Dr Tash Reddy: mother, survivor, healer, advocate and storyteller, whose mission is to help others move beyond survival and reclaim the pen to write what happens next.

My parents divorced when I was four years old. After a difficult custody battle, my mother was granted custody of me. We moved often and lived in many different places before eventually settling in Verulam. I later matriculated from Trenance Park Secondary School and continued my studies at the University of Durban-Westville.

I grew up in an environment that was deeply toxic and chaotic. I was bullied for being overweight and for how I looked, which made me feel insecure, invalidated and unsure of myself. At one point, I was admitted to Townhill Mental Hospital for depression and suicidal thoughts. That experience became a turning point in my life.

While I was there, I heard the stories of other patients and witnessed pain that changed my perspective. I began to understand that healing was possible, no matter what had happened to me. That experience gave me the ability to keep overcoming, even when life became difficult again.

My resilience was tested again when I became a widow at the age of 29. Later, I experienced betrayal when my husband cheated and left my children and me for a friend of mine. He abandoned our children, requested a paternity test despite being their father, and then cut off all contact with them.

I have also been through a deeply painful court battle involving divorce, maintenance and protection orders, while facing anger, hatred, accusations and the complete emotional discard of my children. The experience left them extremely traumatised, but the skills I had learned over the years helped me turn hardship into strength and support them as they survived, healed and began to thrive.

If I could live my life over, I would still choose the lessons that came from those experiences. They taught me to trust myself, accept myself and still see beauty in who I am. Most importantly, they taught me persistence, strength, courage and resilience.

Those experiences gave me goals, and I am grateful to say that I have achieved them. My story is not only about what I survived; it is about what I learned, what I built, and how I used my pain to become stronger for myself and for my children.

Who is Tasjia Rose Reddy beyond the titles?

Beyond the titles, I am a woman who has lived. I have known joy, heartbreak, motherhood, loss, trauma, rebuilding, disappointment, courage, and transformation. I have walked through chapters I never would have chosen, but those chapters taught me who I am.

I am a mother, a woman, a survivor, a healer, an advocate, a storyteller and someone who believes profoundly in the resilience of the human spirit.

Perhaps the greatest gift I carry is my ability to connect with people, especially children, teenagers, and young adults. Young people talk to me. They confide in me. They listen because I do not speak down to them; I speak to them.

I understand their language, their world, their pressures and the complexities they are navigating. I believe one of my greatest gifts is being able to communicate safely and meaningfully with our future generations.

My purpose is not to tell people who they should become. It is to remind them of who they already are and help them find the courage to step fully into that truth.

What drew you to trauma, counselling and NLP?

I do not believe my path to healing was accidental. Life teaches you things no textbook can. My own experiences helped me understand how profoundly trauma can shape the way we think, behave, love, trust, and see ourselves.

My greatest focus is child resilience. Children do not always have the language to explain trauma, so it often appears in other ways: through behaviour, anger, withdrawal, rebellion, silence, or changes in their academic and social lives.

Adults are often quick to ask, “What is wrong with this child?” I want us to ask a better question: “What happened to this child, and what can we do to help this child rise above it?” I have helped my own children navigate trauma, and seeing them thrive has reinforced my belief that trauma does not have to become a life sentence.

What does your South African heritage mean to you?

My heritage means strength. I come from generations of incredibly strong women — my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my mother — who faced difficult circumstances and found ways to turn situations around.

That resilience is part of my inheritance. It has shaped how I see family, community, perseverance, Ubuntu and the wisdom passed down through generations.

At the same time, I believe heritage should evolve. We can honour where we come from without blindly repeating patterns that no longer serve us.

For me, heritage means taking wisdom, leaving dysfunction, and creating something healthier for the generation that comes after us.

What is the biggest wound you see South African women and children carrying?

I believe one of the greatest wounds South African women and children carry is silence.

Children are often told to “get over it” because they are young. But children do not simply get over trauma. They need safe spaces where they can process what has happened to them, be heard without judgment, and begin to heal.

With women, I see something similar. Women become so accustomed to surviving that they forget they are allowed to live.

They carry children, families, relationships, financial pressures, and everyone else’s emotions. Somewhere along the way, they can begin to lose themselves.

My message is simple: you are more than what happened to you. Your circumstances may have shaped you, but they do not have to define you.

What made you say “enough is enough” regarding GBV and women?

I believe deeply in the words: “If you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” Women are the backbone of families, communities and societies.

I also believe we need to be honest about why women sometimes remain in abusive situations. Healing is hard work, and leaving can mean giving up many familiar things, including:

financial security;

a lifestyle or home environment;

relationships and support systems;

material comfort; and

the certainty of what is known.

Sometimes women remain in dangerous situations because the danger is familiar, while the unknown feels frightening.

I do not judge those women. I want to help them understand that there is life beyond the comfort of the familiar.

When a woman finally says, “Enough,” that can become the beginning of an entirely different life.

I want every child to know;

“Your trauma is what happened to you; it does not own you”

Why take conversations like Trauma Talk Thursday, Mental Health Bytes and Hope Beyond Scars online?

Because pain does not only exist inside therapy rooms. Someone may be sitting alone somewhere in the world, carrying something they have never told anyone, and then hearing one sentence on a podcast that changes the way they see themselves.

That is why I do it. I want conversations like Trauma Talk Thursday, Mental Health Bytes and Hope Beyond Scars to become bigger than South Africa.

I want my podcasts and message to reach an international audience. Interestingly, I have received tremendous support internationally, sometimes even more than I receive locally. That has shown me that this message is bigger than geography.

I do not want to speak only to one community. I want to speak to humanity.

If someone in another country hears my voice and decides not to give up on themselves, then the message has reached exactly where it needed to go.

How do we break the cycle of silence among South African women?

We have to become willing to have uncomfortable conversations. South Africa has become very good at beautiful window dressing. We talk about empowerment, GBV and mental health, but talking is not the same as changing.

We do not always like confrontation. Too often, we would rather make everything look acceptable than deal honestly with what is happening underneath.

Women can sometimes be particularly hard on other women. We speak about empowering women, but then refuse to support another woman’s business, platform, voice or success.

If we genuinely believe women are powerful, then we have to stop treating another woman’s success as a threat.

We need to support women who are brave enough to change their lives.

What does Heritage Month mean to you?

Heritage Month means a great deal to me because I come from a heritage of women. My great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother all carry incredible stories of strength, courage, resilience and the ability to turn difficult situations around.

One woman I have always found particularly significant is Winnie Madikizela-Mandela. People are often quick to criticize her, but I have always been interested in the woman behind the public narrative: her pain, her struggle, her sacrifices and her refusal to stop fighting.

I relate to women who have had to fight for their voices, fight for their children, sit in courts and police stations, deal with systems that do not always understand them, and still get up the next morning and continue.

Sometimes the world sees the woman standing but never sees what it cost her to remain standing. That is something I understand deeply.

That is why I say: “If you strike a woman, you strike a rock.” There is a resilience inside women that the world often discovers only after it has tried to break them.

What does healing really look like?

Healing is not forgetting. In fact, I believe healing is about remembering, processing, and then finding a way forward.

There are things in life that you never simply “get over.” Some experiences stay with you for the rest of your life. But you can process them. You can understand them. You can learn from them.

You can take something that was intended to destroy you and turn it into a positive outcome. Your trauma may be a chapter in your story, but it does not get to write the ending.

What would you say to a young girl in Durban who feels broken because of trauma?

I would look at her and say: “Baby girl, you are not broken.” Something happened to you. Something may have hurt you deeply. Something may have made you question your worth. But none of that is your identity.

I know this because my own daughter has experienced extreme trauma, and she is only twelve years old. Today, she is a beautiful, respectful, sweet, and talented young girl who is thriving in every area of her life.

I believe that is because I listen. I take the time to remind her how beautiful she is. I remind her that what happened was not her fault, that she is deeply loved, and that she can pursue the things her heart desires.

I encourage her to build her own identity outside of the trauma. I do not promote a victim’s mentality; I promote an overcomer mentality.

It is not about your shortcomings. It is about how you overcome them.

How do you protect your own energy?

I have learned the importance of boundaries. I can care without carrying it. I can listen without being absorbed. I can love without losing myself.

My responsibility is to provide a safe space, perspective, tools and support. Ultimately, though, people have to participate in their own healing.

I have also learned that the healer needs healing too. Being strong does not mean being available to everyone all the time.

What message would you give today’s youth?

I would tell them: you are not the problem to be fixed. You are the generation with the power to change the pattern.

I want young men to understand that masculinity is not domination, intimidation or violence.

I want young women to understand that they never have to accept violence to prove they are worthy of love.

Most importantly, I want young people to talk:

Talk to someone.

Ask questions.

Challenge what does not make sense.

Do not suffer in silence

I have a special connection with young people because I understand their language. I do not approach them as though I have all the answers and they know nothing. I meet them where they are.

Sometimes that is all a young person needs: somebody safe enough to talk to and wise enough to listen.

What does being a modern South African woman mean to you?

Being a modern South African woman means knowing that I can be both soft and powerful. I can be compassionate while still having boundaries, ambitious while still having a heart, and loving while still choosing myself.

It means I can honour my heritage without allowing outdated thinking to determine my future.

It also means I can stand beside another woman without feeling threatened by her light.

I do not need to become hard to be strong, and I do not need anybody’s permission to know my worth.

Complete: “I am Dr Tash Reddy, and my story is…

“I am Dr Tash Reddy, and my story is a story of resilience.”

It is a story of being tested and discovering that I was stronger than I knew. It is a story shaped by motherhood, pain, rebuilding, advocacy, healing, and purpose.

My story is also about taking experiences that could have broken me and asking, “What can I build from this?”

It is not about everything I have been through. It is about everything I have become despite it.

I am not here because life was easy. I am here because I kept going.

Now, I want to teach other people how to keep going, too.

What message would you leave every woman still on her healing journey?

Do not give up on yourself because healing is taking longer than you expected. Healing is hard work. It requires honesty, uncomfortable decisions and, sometimes, walking away from things that are familiar, comfortable, and materially secure.

Do not confuse familiarity with safety. Do not confuse comfort with happiness. You deserve peace. You deserve dignity. You deserve to discover who you are outside of the roles you have been performing for everyone else.

If you are a mother, remember that your children are watching how you treat yourself. When we teach children resilience, we are not only helping them survive today; we may be changing an entire generation.

I do not want our children to inherit our unhealed wounds. I want them to inherit our wisdom.

What I Want the Next Generation to Know

I want them to know that:

adversity can be overcome;

trauma can be processed;

mistakes do not make them failures;

asking for help is strength;

their identity belongs to them; and

They can become extraordinary human beings, regardless of what happened to them.

Ultimately, I do not want to raise a generation that simply knows how to survive trauma. I want to raise a generation that knows how to overcome it.

That, for me, is the heart of everything I do.

RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS

Hope is... that tiny voice inside you that says, “Try one more time,” when everything around you is telling you to give up.

Healing in one word?

Reclamation. Because ultimately, healing is about reclaiming the parts of yourself you abandoned while trying to survive.

One myth about trauma you want to break?

“If you look fine, you must be fine.”

That is one of the most harmful myths about trauma. Some of the most wounded people you will ever meet are functioning beautifully outside.

Never confuse someone’s ability to function with the absence of pain.

“I don’t want women to simply survive their stories. I want them to reclaim the pen and become the authors of what happens next.” That, to me, is Dr. Tash Reddy.