“No matter what happens, The show must go on.”
Roopam is a 28-year-old woman who orchestrates her management skills to shine in the corporate world daily. She also mesmerises the crowd with her storytelling mastery by performing in live events in Bangalore. She used to work on the business development team at Great Learning and is a senior analyst at a corporate company.
“I hold two hats at the same time. I take my creativity to work so that people can enjoy working with me, and I take my management knowledge while managing the events I perform at.”
Roopam is content with this way of life and says it is satisfying. She and her siblings—a younger sister and a brother—were born and raised in Delhi. She feels her siblings are the only two who will not fail to catch her when she falls. Coming from a middle-class family, Roopam explains that her relationship with her family has been a rollercoaster.
“As you grow, your parents also grow. My parents wanted to give their kids everything they could; they tried to protect us. Along with giving us the exposure, they also had to be restrictive due to a lot of societal pressure.”
Roopam adds that she was ambitious as a kid. With the limited resources her family could provide, she wanted to excel in her academics and extracurricular activities. She explains that she always went the extra mile to achieve and secure the top level in everything.
Roopam describes her school life with vivid memories of her being on stage since second grade, conducting assemblies, and participating in every creative event possible. She says that her personality of constantly trying to achieve more limited her chances of making a large group of friends. She adds that she had focused on being top rather than enjoying her childhood or teenage life.
As Roopam continued to sustain her place, the pandemic and lockdown started posing a challenge for her. She thought of recording her storytelling and posting it online when looking for a way to exhibit her creativity. Roopam says although it was a good thought, her parents started receiving a lot of criticism about Roopam’s videos from their circles.
“I used to be a people pleaser; when I couldn’t make everybody happy with my work, I started being hard on myself. On top of that, when people’s words hurt my parents, it upset me more.”
Roopam elucidates that even though her parents were the happiest people every time she got on stage and performed, they couldn’t handle it when some of her relatives told them that Roopam wasn’t getting any groom or alliance and that her marriage was delayed because of her posting videos on social media. She describes feeling like she disappointed her family and let them down.
Amidst all of these, Roopam was having a stressful day, and she came across the YourDOST newsletter since her company partnered with the platform. She expressed her wish to seek therapy to her mother, and the whole family, seeing her struggle, encouraged her to speak to the experts.
Roopam started by briefly chatting with the experts available and eventually started scheduling proper sessions after she felt it would be fulfilling.
“The first session with my counselor was very calming. She was a great listener, and she was the person who pointed out the people-pleasing trait in me for the first ever time.”
Roopam explains that over the years when she hardly made a handful of friends, she tended to say ‘yes’ to everything to fit in. Due to this tendency, Roopam wanted to stop performing as well when she was posed with disapproval from her relatives, but since it has been her passion for so many years, it has started suffocating her.
“Performing is part of me; I naturally couldn’t stop it. I was frustrated and went into a self-pity mode. Ideally, I wanted to run away like in movies and start over where nobody would know me or be an obstacle to my biggest life decisions.”
She explains that the entire situation, which questioned her work with society’s parameters, put her in alert mode, and she was triggered even when someone gave an alternate suggestion for buying chocolate.
Understanding that Roopam has accumulated emotions that she hasn’t expressed, her therapist gave her activities related to journaling. She asked Roopam to get creative and employed various techniques to pour out her feelings and thoughts.
“As a storyteller, bringing me to a particular point is very challenging, so my counselor made me write specific emotions and thoughts to zero in on every problem.”
To help with Roopam’s negative emotions and self-doubt, her therapist asked her to write down letters and also asked her to garden a plant, water it and care for it every day to make her feel grounded in times of panic. She was also made to use self-help videos to mediate. Roopam explained that these techniques were helpful and used them even after her sessions ended.
Eventually, with therapy, Roopam realised that she didn’t have to impress everybody in her life in every aspect. She explained that she got clarity that life could function even when some people around her disagreed or had different opinions.
“My counselor helped me see that a life lived for someone else is not a life lived and that it is better to make decisions that make you happy.”
Roopam elaborates that she stopped trying to please people and started separating her emotions from any particular situation in life. She describes that she learned to view issues from a ‘third eye’ and be forgiving and grateful towards people who respect her individuality.
Roopam explains that she is grateful to her counselor for trusting her instincts and pointing out the areas where she needs to work on herself. She adds that her counselor will always be close to her heart, and with that feeling, she rates herself 4 out of 5.
As Roopam intends to grow continuously throughout her journey, we are proud of her resistance and courage and wish her all the best.
Roopam’s Warrior Tips:
1.“When someone is agitated, it is not always directed towards you. Don’t be harsh on yourself for someone else’s actions.”
2.“You don’t have to be perfect to be happy.”
3.“When you have a broken ankle, you approach a professional and not a friend; please do the same for your mental health, too – approach the experts.”
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