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The most difficult phase of life is not when no one understands you; It is when you don't understand yourself.

  • Are you stressed about your child?

  • Is your marriage in trouble?

  • Are you stressed about your education?

  • Do you feel overwhelmed by anxiety and fear?

  • Are you confused about your choices?

Just mail mycounsellor@banjaraacademy.org to get free online counselling. Now sharing your problems, your worries, your anxieties, your fears. Your counsellor will reply to you, and be there for you until you need her to help you cope and get going. We guarantee the confidentiality of your personal data as well as any other information that you disclose.

Absolutely FREE – no hidden costs

No registration or formalities of any kind.

Straightforward and simple, heart-to-heart emotional support – the kind a good, understanding friend would give you!

Coordinating the online email counselling team of volunteer counsellors, I realize it is not an easy task reaching out to a person one has never met, never seen, without the added advantage of gestures, eye contact, a gentle reassuring touch, tone of voice and yet providing empathy, positive strokes, making the person feel heard and understood.

With the aid of only written words, it is quite a task building trust, making people open up and share and helping them cope and feel better. So when in many instances they write back saying thank you and that they feel so much better, the feeling one gets is priceless and incomparable – knowing one has done something right, something good!

Hats off to all the volunteeer-counsellors of Banjara Academy who have been carrying on this work silently, anonymously for the last few years. Truly commendable! – Ali Khwaja

FREE Online COUNSELLING Services of Banjara Academy: History

Under the banner, Helping Hand, Banjara Academy has always been offering free counselling in person for anybody in emotional distress, firmly believing that such support should never be at a fee.

For the last couple of decades, anybody in Bangalore, India, in dire need to talk to somebody has had to just call Banjara Academy and fix up an appointment with one of our volunteer counsellors or just walk into our offices  and meet one of our volunteer counsellors.

With the advent of the internet and emails, many have also been writing to us about their problems and we have been replying to them, doing our best to be there for them as counsellors.

With the free online counselling service by email, we are seeking to reach out, beyond Bangalore, to more people (now, you may be anywhere in the world) and provide you with some degree of emotional support, whatever we can, as we have always been doing so for the past couple of decades – emotional support that you may be struggling to find in your life.

 

Every baby and small child has an innate desire and curiosity to explore, learn and acquire skills. 

Adults find it so difficult to hold back toddlers who wish to move around all over the place and investigate everything within their reach. They use all their senses to see, listen, touch, taste & smell whatever they come across.

As the child grows older, he is sent to school to get ‘educated’, but all his motivation and desire to learn reduces.  He then has to be forced to listen to the teacher, take notes, do calculations, complete his homework, and ‘mug up’ for exams. Is it the fault of the student, or is it the fault of all of us adults who kill the curiosity and the joy of learning?

Instead of blaming the system or authorities, each one of us can, and should, do our bit to rekindle the spark of learning in any child we interact with, and send him off on a path of growth to become a capable adult.

It’s not difficult.

Careers and Studies:

Find out your most suitable learning style: 

Each one of us is unique, and the best method that suits our study should be determined by trial and error, till we are satisfied.  Check out if any or many of these techniques give you better learning and retention:

  1. Sitting in one place and reading, or standing, walking around, moving place of study every few minutes, or even lying down.
  2. Writing as you read, either in a notebook, small flip-cards, or on a black/white board that you can keep in your room.
  3. Reading mainly from the notes instead of the main text book, and referring to the text book periodically.
  4. Reading aloud to yourself, or even reading out to a friend or parent.
  5. Highlighting or underlining with a pencil the important passages or definitions.
  6. Closing the book once every 5, 10 or 20 minutes and recalling what you have read (or even writing down in point-form)
  7. Playing soft music when you read
  8. Reading one subject continuously for hours vs. shifting periodically from one subject to another.

 

Case Study

Rohini has been a good student and managed 10.0 CGPA in her 10th standard CBSE.  However she did not like science too much (though she enjoyed Math), and took up Commerce at the +2 level.  Her parents were not too happy with it as everyone in their family were engineering, doctors etc and they felt that science students have better careers than commerce students.

As an after-thought Rohini’s parents asked her to enroll for the Common Proficiency Test (CPT) which is the first step to becoming a Chartered Account.  Again it was entirely in the belief that CA’s are the most respectable professionals in commerce.  Rohini appeared for CPT but missed clearing it by a few marks.  Her parents again coaxed her to re-appear, and in the second attempt she succeeded!

Rohini is not interested in becoming a CA, but did not know how to convince her parents.  Finally she went in for an Aptitude test.  The result was that she is a people-oriented person and would be much happier in areas of applied finance, not pure accounting.  The report mentioned many careers that have commerce as a base but which involve understanding and dealing with people.  The family started looking up details of the careers highlighted in the report, and were pleasantly surprised to see very interesting and exciting options open for their child.  Rohini is now happily doing her B.Com, getting fairly good marks.  She has also taken up a couple of on-line courses suggested by her counselor to enhance her skills in the fields she is considering as her final career.

A famous writer once said: “We Indians are only focused on weddings, but do not give any significance to marriage”.

I look around and find people doing everything to arrange the grandest weddings, but hardly spending any time or effort on helping the couple understand how they can make their married life harmonious.

When two people of opposite gender, having had different upbringing, education, relationships and attitudes, come together to share such an intimate relationship (and even bring up children together), don’t they require to plan, prepare, look into possible hurdles, and learn how to build a strong and loving relationship – which may last more than half a century ?

There is so much that can be done on working out all issues of the marital relationship in advance, the way we work out careers, homes, finances or health. Wish we start working on this crucial issue. 

Generally we are contented with the way our days are going and can deal with minor issues without much discomfort.

But sometimes life throws up unexpected challenges at you. Circumstances change, fortunes go up and down, luck favors or abandons you, and you face intense happy or sad situations. Sometimes you have no control of what is happening, and you do your best to overcome the hurdles or setbacks.  When faced with very difficult times, one thing becomes clear – you get to know who your true friends are, and who will give you unconditional support. 

Hope Diwali brings brighter days in your life.