Heart and Soul: Life Lessons in a Fable
Enter a world where anxiety and judgment become characters, perceived limitations become doorways, and every journey reveals the light within.
Through a collection of meaningful fables, Payam invites readers to discover courage, connection, and a deeper understanding of themselves.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Joy and the Moon is a collection of fables that follow the adventures of characters as they walk through portals full of life lessons.
Coming face-to-face with the titans Anxiety and Judgment, the characters tell tales of self-discovery. Each fable invites readers to see themselves in the story and is accompanied by journal prompts and exercises aimed at stretching the heart and soul.
Payam, a nonspeaking autistic young adult, has woven his own experiences with anxiety and judgment into the collection. This is most clearly seen through the two heroes, Joy and Auti. Auti, whose name is inspired by autism, represents those whose voices are too often unheard. Joy is symbolic of everyone who has faced anxiety and battles of their own.
Enter the portal, page by page, and discover the joy hidden in your own journeys.
You do not have to be autistic for these stories to resonate; you just have to be willing to be brave enough to allow your perceived limitations to lead the way
- Payam
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Payam is an autistic non-speaking author who lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his family.
Besides having the unique lived experience of being autistic, Payam also experiences anxiety. He communicates through writing. As a non-speaker, Payam has the profound benefit of deep reflection through creative writing.
In an attempt to reach a deeper understanding of his anxiety, Payam wrote the featured fable Joy and the Moon. In this exercise of therapeutic storytelling, Payam was able to uncover his own inner strengths. Inspired by the metaphors he created while writing this story, he wrote the rest of the stories found in the book with the hope they could inspire others as well.
The fables serve as teaching metaphors and tools, shining a new light on what it means to be autistic, on the meaning behind the non-speaking life experience, on what it means to connect with each other, and on the inner power that lives in us all.
This book is especially for anyone who knows a person who communicates nontraditionally or thinks through a neurodivergent mind. The moral of these stories is inclusion and acceptance, including self-acceptance and admiration. In that sense, this book is really for everyone.