There is a fascinating story in the Indian epic, Mahabharata about how a great warrior called Abhimanyu learnt the great techniques of war while still in his mother’s womb, while his father Arjuna was explaining it to his mother, Subhadra.
It made only a captivating bedtime story, until a few years ago, a research writer called Annie Murphy Paul released a book called “Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives” written from research over decades on how the world outside the womb shapes the child. The emotional state of the mother weighs heavily on the personality of the child.
To know more about stories that have found scientific relevance later, read this:
15 fabulous examples that connect science and stories!
It is this powerful link between the mother and child that Anurama Suresh discovered during her journey into mind coaching and healing. An engineer-turned-healer/coach, Anurama discovered that several women go through difficult pregnancies primarily due to their emotional states. Moved by a passion to help them, she founded Shreehi, with a single-minded focus to help women carry a positive mindset before conception and throughout their pregnancies. Shreehi became one of the top 15 ventures out of 1700+ entries to be incubated at the prestigious IIM-B.
We did an interview with Anurama to bring a sound understanding of her venture and her vision to our readers and help them through the roller-coaster rides of the 9 months that they are preparing to become a parent.
Anurama Suresh, Founder- Shreehi
You are the founder of Shreehi, which means “Divine mother”. Can you tell a little more about that?
Women require a lot of emotional support and guidance before conception and during pregnancy. When a lady faces repeated miscarriages or fertility treatment failures, she faces chronic loneliness. A study run by TOI during Fertile Conversations event proved that 77% of women who go through infertility treatments or miscarriages feel depressed for months together and 17% feel near suicidal for months. At Shreehi, with Mind Coaching, we notice that our clients have a conscious control of their minds. Once the mind is filled with positive emotions and a complete acceptance for life, the body beautifully responds for conception.
If the mind is not in acceptance of the fertility treatments, the body delays responding to the treatment positively.
What are the benefits of your program as against seeking regular treatment for infertility, etc?
Our program is not meant to be a substitution for regular treatment for infertility. Our Mind Coaching program is aimed at improving the probability of successful conception. A simple formula for successful pregnancy can be given as “ Healthy body + Healthy mind = Successful Pregnancy ”. The treatments for the physical body are important but the mind plays a far greater role than we imagine.If the mind is not in acceptance of the fertility treatments, the body delays responding to the treatment positively.
We conducted a survey in which around 500 women participated. Though 94% of women felt the need to have a positive mindset during fertility treatment, in reality, only 2% women actually felt positive when they were undergoing the treatment. We, at Shreehi, consciously work towards women celebrating every part of their motherhood and this journey starts right from conception, bonding with the baby during pregnancy, healing oneself well post delivery, conscious parenting, etc.
When is the best time for parents to seek this intervention?
A couple who has just started considering having a baby and growing a family can approach us anytime. We really wish that anyone who goes through fertility treatment meets with success the first time. Our Mind Coaching can be a good add-on for couples who have decided to opt for fertility treatment / natural conception. Women go through a lot of anxiety when they approach fertility treatment, sometimes forced to keep secrecy around the treatment even from close family. Our current social media generation loves to share and talk about success stories, forgetting that a coin has two sides. Failure is an integral part of life and we definitely need to learn to embrace failure and talk about it gracefully. Our Mind Coaching sessions help women to embrace success and failure alike. Once a woman taps into her inner power, it gives her a lot of strength to face and accept life the way it is.
What is the typical length of each session and the consulting plan?
We prefer to host our one to one mind coaching sessions over Skype / Facetime video call. We have noticed that people are very comfortable taking our sessions from the comfort of their home (when no one is around) or choose an isolated surrounding at their workplace to connect with us. Many women generally prefer reaching office early and schedule a coaching session with us as early as 8 am. Meeting face to face for the sessions is challenging given our current traffic conditions. With technology as a huge add-on, we have a lot of clients from all over India and abroad. Women from US, Australia, Sweden have benefitted from our pregnancy Mind Coaching sessions. Usually, each session lasts between 60 minutes to 90 minutes.
Who are your typical clients?
We have had women who were married for 8 to 10 years, tried several schools of medicine for infertility(western/ homoeopathy) and had given up on the idea of natural conception. With a few Mind Coaching sessions, these women naturally conceived and are currently our ambassadors in various forums. More recently, we see several men opt for Mind Coaching as they too feel a need to let out their deep-rooted insecurities- which is such a welcome change!
Many independent gynaecologists are our enablers and are recommending their patients to us.
What were your biggest challenges when you first started?
I am in the field of Executive Coaching and Life Coaching since 2010. With 10 years of experience in IT, learning NLP and stumbling into coaching are the biggest blessings in my life. I had been conducting group workshops at Christ University, or mid-size companies like BookMyTrainings.com, etc. When we had to register for a company, getting a suitable name was the first big challenge. After various iterations, I had given up on the idea of getting a suitable name. In one of my Arhat meditations, I had sat with a prayer surrendering to my Higher Soul’s guidance. At the end of the meditation, I saw the Sanskrit letter Shreehi glowing in gold. To our surprise, the name got approved for company registration. We also got our website, Facebook handle, etc easily. It was only after few months of company registration that I got to know that in Sanskrit “Shreehi” stands for “The Divine Mother.”
Last year, IIM-B ran an online Massive Open Online Course for women entrepreneurs. It was during the MOOC I understood my true passion for pregnancy mind coaching. To my surprise, from 1700+ participants, I was selected in the Top50 to attend a 3-week boot camp at IIMB. Getting into the list of Top15 and getting incubated at NSRCEL, IIMB was a dream come true opportunity.
As part of the IIMB Bootcamp
As for any startup, getting the initial team members who will share the passion of the founder is a huge challenge. The way the current team has come together is a real blessing for me. We are now a team of 6 women and my husband, who is the co-founder. I am a Master NLP practitioner certified by NFNLP, Florida. 4 of my team members – Buvana, Priya, Nandini and Karthika are also certified NLP practitioners from NFNLP, Florida. Deepambika is a Landmark forum graduate and is our external consultant.
As a team in a new field, we have our own challenges. Many young women happily take our services, but taking this forward as a full-fledged service with corporate companies or hospitals is time-consuming. As a team, we were recognized by Times of India to participate as an expert in their event ‘Fertile Conversations’ that happened at NIMHANS Convention centre on July 23rd.
Shreehi lives by Dr Wayne Dyer’s words, “You can’t give what you don’t have”.
What is the best way for couples to reach you?
We provide Mind Coaching services around 3 main areas of pregnancy – conception, during the gestation period, and post-natal support. Couples aspiring to become parents, women who are pregnant and have fear or anxiety towards childbirth, find our services very helpful. Women who have given birth recently, find Mind Coaching to be beneficial to overcome postnatal depression, heal their bodies, lactate well and bond well with their husband and the newborn.
You can reach us through our website, our FB page or WhatsApp us at 99809 40604 or mail us at coach@shreehi.com. Several couples have reached us through the contact form on the website as well.
You are a parent yourself. How do you divide your time between the venture and your family?
At team Shreehi, we all are moms who have faced our own issues with conception, pregnancy or postnatal cure. As a team, we truly believe in Dr Wayne Dyer’s words, “You can’t give what you don’t have”.
We truly understand and believe that we can make a positive difference in someone else’s life only when our personal lives are filled with happiness, joy and contentment.
How do you see Shreehi evolving in 10 years?
Young couples these days are very open in terms of taking help.
When many young couples adopt the path of conscious conception, they end up attracting souls from Higher spiritual planes. When more and more souls take birth from higher spiritual planes, we are in turn, creating Heaven on Earth. This is our vision at Shreehi. We realize that we are mere instruments in the hands of Divine LifeForce in its process of creating ‘Heaven on Earth’. 10 years down the lane, we see Shreehi evolving into a huge university similar to HayHouse or MindValley Academy
Finally, what do you like about Kidskintha.
The originality in Kidskintha’s articles is a good source of inspiration for many parents. I have found the blog to have a one-pointed focus to bring emotional health to parents and children. Our hearty wishes to Kidskintha to touch many more parents and create a world of love and joy for all kids!
