Meet Shreya Badonia: The Self Love Coach and The Author of Silver Lining Journal

It’s been a year since I am following this one person from Quora who was so vocal about Self Love and Self Care, and I got hooked onto that idea!

A few conversations later, I asked her if she’d be interested in interviewing with me.

I was so much keen to know more about her viewpoints.

She said YES. (yay!)

So, here we have Shreya Badonia (from ShreyaBadonia.com) – The Author of Silver Lining Journal.

Dipanshu: If you have to introduce Shreya Badonia using only 3 lines, how’d you do it?

Shreya: I am an author, a self-love coach, and a designer. I love watching the sky, and I can’t stop collecting and filling my journals.

Dipanshu: So Shreya, finally you’re launching your online courses shortly! Tell us more about that.

Shreya: I am so excited to finally share my knowledge with my community on a personal level. I have been trying to share my experiences and knowledge of self-love and my transformation on different online platforms, but it’s not possible to connect with everyone and help them personally.

So after a lot of requests and wait, I designed these courses to help people love themselves and live a life that’s fulfilling and content.

Dipanshu: When I read/hear the name “Shreya Badonia”, I resonate it the most with the term “Self-Love”. When did you start this journey? What was the reason behind it?

Shreya: I grew up hating myself, loathing how I looked and was constantly engaged in self- sabotaging. I felt like I wasn’t good enough. My parent’s separation also triggered the self hate that I carried in my heart for as long as I can remember.

It took a lot of time for me to come out of that phase and a lot of deliberate efforts to finally accept myself who I was and fell in love with the person God created me to be.

We often don’t realize how unique we are, we all have amazing capabilities and strength we know nothing about, but once you tap that uniqueness you meet a NEW YOU and that shift is all we need to live a purposeful and happy life.

Dipanshu: If someone wants to start their self-love journey today, where shall they begin?

Shreya: Acceptance is the first step of self-love. You need to accept who you are first, and then everything will automatically fall into place. So you’ve got to accept who you are and then believe that you can be better and take conscious steps to become a better person than you were yesterday.

Dipanshu: What’s the most common hurdle people face on their journey of Self Love?

Shreya: The notion of what other people think about us is killing more dreams than we can imagine. When I was growing up, my family and friends used to make fun of my forehead, which they thought was abnormally big, and they would call me names. I, being a kid, took all of that personally, and I started hating how I looked.

I had a major breakdown because of that. I stopped looking in the mirror; I started feeling ugly. 

All of those negative feelings because some people had different views about how i looked. How messed up is that. It took me a decade to get over that belief that I carried until I accepted myself for who I was. Self-love is how you see yourself irrespective of what people see in you. And we need to stop worrying about what people think of us.

Dipanshu: What’s your mantra? How do you deal with stress?

Shreya: There are a few things that I do when I am under stress. I spend some time alone and practice deep breathing. I try to meditate for 5-10 minutes, but most days I transfer my stress into my journal, and that gives me instant relief.

My mantra is simple: you keep doing what you truly want to and keep yourself away from the negativity around to lead a stress-free life.

Dipanshu: What are the top 3 lessons you have learned so far in your life? 

Shreya:

1. If you love yourself, you’ll love your life.
2. Every obstacle, every setback, and every heartbreak is a lesson you need to learn to get to your destination.
3. Believe in the power that is bigger than you, and you’ll see that there’s nothing you need to worry about.

Dipanshu: People consider “self-love” as being selfish. What are your views on it?

Shreya: That’s how we’ve been raised and self-love being selfish is in our system. We have been taught to respect everyone other than us. We’ve been asked to listen to everyone and ignore our own voice.

We’ve been doing what society decided for us to do. So when people come out and want to appreciate themselves and try to live a life according to their will, people start calling them selfish.

We came alone in this world, and we’ll all leave alone. It’s our responsibility to love the person God created us to be. And whoever thinks self-love is selfish needs it the most 🙂

Dipanshu: As a YouTuber, which one is your favorite video of your own?

Shreya: My self-love transformation, because I learned that being vulnerable in words and in front of a camera are two different things. It’s the first time I talk about being bullied in my childhood.

Dipanshu: Your favorite book(s)? 

Shreya:

1. The Illusions by Richard Bach
2. The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran
3. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

[Related Read: 16 Best Books I Read in 2018]

Dipanshu: Who are the influencers you follow the most on social media?

Shreya: Oprah any day. Gary Vaynerchuk, Lewis Howes.

Dipanshu: If you have only 1 day to live, what are the 3 things you’d be doing?

Shreya: Traveling, spending time with my loved ones and gratitude journaling,

Dipanshu: One message for your followers, before we sum up this interview?

Shreya: We are living on autopilot, following a path that someone else carved for us. Do you really think we’re created to get up at 7 and do a job that we hate from 9-5 and live like that until we retire?
I truly believe that if we understand that we all are here for a bigger purpose, we’d be living a life that’s more fulfilling and blissful. 

Connect With Shreya Badonia

Send a “Hello” in her Instagram DM here – https://www.instagram.com/shreyabadonia/

Subscribe to her YouTube channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/shreyabadonia

Buy her book “Silver Lining Journal” here – https://amzn.to/31FS376