“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” ― Aristotle
Saipriya Yallayi, a 20 years old product designer at ANU, had only shifted to her college hostel when she first felt that nothing was going well for her. The sight of so many new things happening to us can be overwhelming and stressing, and we might start feeling that everything around us is getting out of our hands. The reason why a new college and a new hostel felt like a test to SaiPriya.
She was mainly never comfortable with her new circle of friends as they could hardly resonate with her go-getter attitude towards studies or show any interest in extracurriculars. But that wasn’t all. Most people in her hostel had also started to negatively act towards her, which made SaiPriya even more uncomfortable. She had started having issues in her faith and spirituality and even began getting into a few habits which she felt were not conducive to her higher studies.
The stress kept building up in her internally while everything started to fall apart. She could realize her habits, patterns, and environment but could hardly do anything about it. That’s when she thought that reaching out to YourDOST could help and connect with her counselor Shruthi Simha.
When Saipriya decided to take counseling sessions, she understood that she would get solutions from the counselor, but her impression was different.
“I thought my counselor would give me immediate solutions. That was my impression.”
So the first challenge was for her to accept that the solutions weren’t going to be immediate. It was important for SaiPriya to understand how counseling works and look into the deep-seated problems. Shruthi educated SaiPriya on how they will go about addressing the same rather than fixing the superficial problem.
This, right here, was the first step for SaiPriya to acknowledge how she felt. And to help her in the process, Shruthi asked SaiPriya to journal her thoughts and feelings to understand the type of thought and the emotions attached to them.
With the help of this technique suggested by Shruthi, SaiPriya started understanding her own thought patterns. She began to identify the thoughts that triggered her and learnt to slowly avoid the new habits that adversely harmed her.
Even though she considered herself a complicated speaker, SaiPriya was elated that Shruthi could understand everything she told her.
“I am a complicated speaker, but she understood everything that I was telling her.”
By making journaling a part of her everyday life and opening up about her emotions, Saipriya was able to see many positive changes in herself. She had started becoming more optimistic about her surroundings and even gradually changed the way she reacted.
As she speaks to YourDOST today, she says she is grateful to Shruthi for all the positive changes and is so glad that Shruthi was a good listener and a patient one, too.
“Counselling can sound hard, but you should give yourself some time to go through the process to see the changes.”
When asked what’s that one thing that she’d like to stress upon, our YD warrior SaiPriya suggests that everyone should stop thinking that they can not open up in counseling. She further says, “Of course, it will be challenging initially, but as you go for more sessions, you will feel the healing process within you. It is your achievement and for your good, so don’t let anyone stop you.”
And we can’t agree more!
SaiPriya’s Warrior Tips:
1. Don’t stop counseling because you didn’t get what you were looking for in the first session. Good things take time.
2. Never hesitate to talk to your counselor.
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