Movie buff, music and sports lover, adventurous, and creative! Yes, this is how 22 year old Varsha Gopal who’s currently pursuing Architecture at Rajalakshmi School of Architecture, describes herself.
What further makes her stand out from the crowd is her confident personality and self-awareness.
“It’s funny that I was always sure of what I don’t want to pursue in my career. I didn’t want to simply fit in. So I chose architecture as it clicked with my inclination towards creativity.”
Since Varsha’s father was a musician, she never found herself being forced into going for a mainstream career. She’s fierce with her choices but when it comes to comfort zone, she finds it in Chennai.
“I was born and brought up in Chennai. This is my comfort zone but I’m also someone who’s wanting to get out of a place because you need to grow and learn.”
But something at the back of Varsha’s mind always bothered her and this something was her inability to address her problems.
“I remember being embarrassed about having problems. I couldn’t even understand which though is toxic and which isn’t”
Thanks to Varsha’s friend from Psychology background and her strong decision making, one fine day she realized that she was ready to talk.
“I wasn’t exposed to therapy. I knew it existed but didn’t know how significant it was. When I came to know about YourDOST through my college, I knew I had to try it out.”
With therapy, Varsha found herself peeling layers of realizations related to therapy and myths that had been keeping her from seeking support. She could see how an expert never tells one what to do but rather let them decide.
“All experts do is make you understand how you can do it and that’s beautiful.”
Having experienced situations where she had faced criticism for having a different opinion, Varsha was also shocked to get responses like “I understand”, “It happens”. She felt nice being understood.
As Varsha started making progress with her counselor, Rashmi Kaur, she started collecting pieces of problems she knew she had to work on.
“I wasn’t aware of self-love. I was dependent on too many people for my emotions because I couldn’t take being judged and had to please them.”
With age and time, her problems would mature is what Varsha thought but couldn’t really see it happening. So she tried addressing them with the help of Rashmi.
“Things like insecurities and failed relationships still bothered me. I wasn’t moving forward. It was disturbing. With therapy, I could name my feelings and give them reasons.”
Talking about her counselor, Rashmi, Varsha can’t help expressing her gratitude towards her for being a great listener, patient, unbiased and available.
“I had so much to share and there was no skipping. She was very empathetic. She made sure she first heard everything and then moved to the suggestions part.”
With Rashmi, Varsha started forming a plan for herself. Since she couldn’t make her mind work due to being stuck, Rashmi helped her with a framework of ‘whys’.
“My counselor told me why I was feeling what I was feeling.”
Today, when Varsha looks back at how far she’s come, she can see the progress shining in front of her. From losing interest in doing things she loved such as music, she now enjoys being her true self again.
“I’d like to call my overall improvement as ‘progressive’ and that’s why I’d rate myself as a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5 of feeling better.”
Varsha’s Warrior Tips:
1.The first step is the most difficult. Once you cross this your counselor will make it so comfortable that you’d want to take bigger steps.
2. People forget that body and mind re together.
3. Best part of therapy is that it is free of judgement.
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