When individuals mention Nari Shakti, they tend to envision everything but a woman who is not well-put together, who does not fall, who does not lose confidence in herself. This has been quite a different reality of mine. My strength was honed in the intimate situations when I would choose to find the strength to give up on myself once more or ultimately make a choice in favor of myself after the betrayals, burnouts and breakdowns.
As a sex therapist, Certified Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, and global emotional-wellness practitioner who offers relationship therapy and trauma therapy to clients from NYC to Mumbai, I am often asked, “How did you get here? How did you become this woman?” The plain truth of it is easy and difficult–and yet simple: I began to speak out the truth about my suffering–and I ceased to apologize about my strength.
When anguish is the beginning and not the conclusion.
Just as most of my clients have thought out in the past, I used to think that betrayal or heartbreak was because something was wrong with me. The articles such as The Truth About Betrayal appealed to me as they were the same thing that I was witnessing in my work and living in my own life: confusion, self-blame, and the unspoken question of why I was not enough.
In trauma therapy, I now help New Yorkers understand that pain is information, not identity. Your nervous system is broken from trying to secure your protection, rather than your punishment. When a person lies, cheats or even abandons you emotionally your brain perceives this as a threat, not a bad day. As long as we do not honor that we remain trapped in self-critical and overthinking cycles rather than heading to the healing.
Selecting me started with the admission that my pain was a reality and that it needed treatment but not condemnation.
Making a choice in a world, where I am making a profit, by being skeptical of myself.
Working and living in between India and international cities such as New York has demonstrated to me the extent the world enjoys women turning against themselves. Whole industries are constructed around the message that you are too much, too little or replaceable. This is enhanced by social media which makes the betrayal of intimate relationships a source of entertainment.
Being a sex coach and a therapist, I witness the price this costs: women from one side, apologizing to their desire, men who are afraid to show their vulnerability, couples who are afraid to speak what they want to say. To make a choice of myself was to decline to be part of the storytelling that maintained my smallness both personally and professionally.
That choice shaped how I built my practice, Shai C Consultancy, and how I support clients who are searching for the best couple counselor or even the best couple therapy in the USA through online work. Making a personal choice does not imply making an isolational choice; it implies choosing an environment, companionship, and mentorship that respects your humanity to the fullest.
As a therapist to an author: committing my philosophy to paper.
My book, Love That Was Meant for Me, can be traced to thousands of clinical hours and my personal experience of recovery following a hurtful emotion. Clients in NYC and further persisted to pose the same questions:
- Why do I keep getting attracted to a similar type of partner?
- How will I ever believe again having been betrayed?
- Is something basically amiss in me?
Rather than providing fast solutions, I would have provided a roadmap, the one that is based on CBT, attachment science, and the truths of sex and intimacy. The book is a combination of stories, thoughts and resources to get you to clearly see your patterns and question them in a gentle way. It is available here:
https://www.amazon.in/dp/8199171219.
I was also picking myself to write it. It required me to own my voice as a global thought leader in relationship therapy, sex therapy, and emotional wellness–not just as a clinician quietly working behind closed doors.
What Nari Shakti actually means to me.
I was not getting the Nari Shakti award with a title or a photo on a card. It was an overall appreciation of all of the clients who were in my presence and made a decision to live a little inch closer to the truth of themselves.
To me, Nari Shakti means:
- Power to be soft, not power to be hard.
- Grace which encompasses self forgiveness, not forgiveness of others.
- Service-based purpose and not performance-based.
I envision Nari Shakti every day in my daily practice, particularly when I work with New Yorkers, who are hurried, busy with their careers, take care of children, identify, and cannot live this way anymore. I’m ready for help.” Nothing can be considered stronger than that reward of speaking the truth.
The translation of this into your healing in NYC.
If you’re reading this from New York, wondering where to even begin, here are a few principles I use with my clients in relationship therapy and CBT Couples Counseling Services:
Identify pattern, but not only the incident.
It could be betrayal, emotional detachment, or sexual avoidance but beyond the one episode we can trace the repetitive pattern. This makes it clear and it makes it less shameful- you are not crazy you are just reacting to something that exists.
Work and not against the nervous system.
In trauma therapy, we use breathwork, grounding, and cognitive tools to help your body feel safer, so your mind can process what happened without spiraling. Healing does not mean that you never get triggered, you just know what to do when you are.
Add sex and intimacy to the discussion.
I promote honesty in couples and individuals about desire, boundaries and pleasure, as a sex coach. In the bedroom, betrayal and unresolved trauma tend to first manifest themselves in avoidance, performance or shutdown. When we integrate sex into relationship therapy, intimacy stops being a silent battleground and becomes a place of mutual care.
Redefine strong according to your own words.
Several clients in NYC use strength as a synonym of overworking, over-giving, and not asking anyone to assist.Together, we rewrite that script: strength is choosing rest, saying no, setting boundaries, and sometimes leaving what harms you – even when everyone else thinks you “have it all.”
Choosing yourself is the most radical act
From pain to Nari Shakti was not a straight line. It was a series of small, brave choices: to go to therapy, to become a therapist, to specialize in trauma and sex, to write a book, to keep speaking about things many cultures would rather keep silent.
If you take anything from my story, let it be this: you do not have to earn the right to choose yourself. You are allowed to set boundaries, to want more, to leave what hurts, to stay and repair, to ask for help.
Whether you connect with me through my book, social channels, or one-to-one work, my intention is the same – to walk beside you as you transform your pain into power, your self-doubt into self-trust, and your story into one you are proud to live.
