Finding that inner Beauty

Tips for married women

Self-care and your role as you, yourself is lost somewhere. Do recognise yourself as an individual first. Failure to keep all your relationships happy and satisfied is the predominant cause of depression in Indian women. Remember, you will reflect and give what you have. Begin with your own happiness first, it will automatically reflect in every phase of your life.

Delhi-based Dr Shivangi Maletia, mother of two is a dental surgeon by profession. She works for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and is a passionate pycho- spiritual coach for Indian women worldwide. She has become the pioneer 'India Vlogger' talking about self-empowerment of women with video views touching 10 million on Facebook and around two million on YouTube.

Shivangi holds conversations, talks, and her activities with participants unleash their potent self, help in discovering positivity, motivation, inspiration and to gain enlightenment in various facets of their personal and professional lives by joining the missing links with their consciousness. Recently, she was in Hyderabad for a motivational workshop conducted for the first time in the city.

Mentioning about why she chose to motivate women who are into depression, she says, "When, I was undergoing my own journey of pageantry and panic attacks, I realised that the true nature and potential of a woman is being overshadowed by her own overtly desirable looks-centric mode of gaining appreciation and a stand in the society; pageantry making it even more obvious. I somehow felt, that the basic criterion, which we have been using to empower the women is so much baseless and faulty, with only looks and virginity playing key roles. Hence, came the very conscious decision of applying the techniques and strategies of 'Productive Pageantry'

She won first title, Mrs. India worldwide, 2014. Thereafter, her passion drove her to win several other prestigious titles such as Craftsvilla Miss Ethnic, 2015 and Mrs.

Heritage World, 2015. She says, "I always consider and believe in the 'Queen' residing within each and every woman. Now, to make every woman realise this queen within, there are similar sets of self experimenting techniques and strategies, which may be enriched creatively in order to reach out to the most fearful hearts and most battered of souls. Acid attack fighter queens or the ones facing home violence or any other atrocity; all need to be approached with one thing very straight in mind, that she is as much a queen, as much a woman, as any one of us. Hence, communicating with them in as normal a way as possible makes them accept themselves even more easily than before. So, the mode of action remains just the same, after all, a queen is always a queen." She adds.

How does one begin to feel this way? She believes that woman must always engage in an unending process of seeking knowledge and its practical application through self-experimentation, in order to realise that 'queen' within. "I always felt this hollowness and shallow perspective behind the term 'beauty' and 'queen', especially in our Indian society, wherein, these faulty understandings are taking away major portions of valuable time and potential of women, who are most of the time engaged in either, enhancing their outer beauty or cribbing and complaining over their gifted and beautiful, seemingly non- perfect bodies. I felt a strong need to overcome this prejudice and the most noticeable limitation with respect to women, and help them realise their true worth, like I had realised for myself."

"What makes us feel less about ourselves or look down upon our potential is our own belief system and thought cycle. Mere shift in the ways of looking at various circumstances, aspects and conditions can easily bring a revolutionary change in our perspective towards ourselves or towards life, as a whole. Women need to look at themselves 'empoweringly', if that's a new term to coin. We need to feel and adopt empowerment as a new lifestyle modality. We are already breaking norms and limitations we had once set for ourselves, but, only with respect to our physical world - the mentality is still stuck in the Orthodox box- like thought process," she shares.

For mothers

- You are a woman first and a mother later. Never let the overestimated concept of motherhood prevailing in our society, ruin your health and spirituality.

- All fears erupt from a weak mother, be it in yourself or in your children. Who you are is what your children will be!

- Never dictate your children from the perceptions of your own mind. Let them be what they see. This will inspire you to become a better human day after day.

For working women

- You are working because you WANT to work. Never ever seek adoration and credit from others, especially family members. Only adoration required is from the self.

- WORK is work, hence, shunning of all judgement pertaining to the kind of work done by homemakers vs. Professional women, creates the 'Woman for a Woman' structure in the society. You are the evolutionary side of feminine, hence a more balanced approach is demanded and can be executed by you.

- Never fail to take breaks, they are much needed and help you rejuvenate to strike even harder the next time.

I always felt this hollowness and shallow perspective behind the term 'beauty' and 'queen', especially in our Indian society, wherein, these faulty understandings are taking away major portions of valuable time and potential of women, who are most of the time engaged either in enhancing their outer beauty or cribbing and complaining over their gifted and beautiful, but seemingly non- perfect bodies

- Dr Shivangi Maletia