2024, Paperback Book, Wellness guide, Authored by Sejal Shah
A comprehensive maternal wellness handbook, on Chakras and Koshas, amalgamating ancient wisdom and modern-day pregnancy. Theory meets personal experience of the author, making it an analytical journal of self-assessment to restore equilibrium.
‘Pregnancy’ is a phase of a woman’s life, that she would dread till she experiences it and rejoice the moment all her life, later. In an age where Grandmas are replaced by Apps to guide these millennial moms to be, in what the gen z calls it an ‘adventure’, comes ‘the first light’, a path finder for many young women, to realign their course of journey through the trimesters.
The book transported me to my pregnancy days, almost three decades ago, where neither google existed or my grand ma or even my mom for that matter, didn’t possess any scientific awareness. All they were aware of were a few unexplained myths pertaining to pregnancy and nothing more. However, coming to think of it, my generation of young mothers were rather blessed, I presume, as we did not experience the digital overload that seems to suffocate gen z. I was fortunate to have my delivery in the United Kingdom as my husband, a surgeon was with the NHS. On reading Sejal’s First Light, I could relate those tangles of emotions of mine, both antenatal and postnatal, that went unattended to, then. I was disturbed for a while after reading the book, as I was left to pity the twenty-year-old pregnant ‘ME’.
I was super impressed with the structure of chapters in the book and the flow of content. It was like walking beside the author, envisaging my own experience. The introduction to the energy centre, touching upon Taittiriya Upanishad and addressing the chakras one after the other with its Sanskrit origin, hooked me to the book, for it made me revisit my Samskritha Bharathi exams days of trying to decode verses. The reader is systematically introduced to the chakras, their traits, identification of the chakras within and realigning them with respect to goals.
The inquisitive questionnaires and the interpretations of the score, seem to connote ‘Self Discipline’, and I inferred, the book could benefit anyone who has an intention to become more ‘self aware’. My notion for life often revolved around the funda – ‘achieving the right balance to endure happiness’ and Sejal beautifully represents the art of balancing the chakras through illustrative yogic postures, her goal indicating, eternal happiness.
Yoga had been a part of my life for nearly 7 years now and it always had been an instrument for achieving a flexible body and a stress free soul. With Sejal’s guidance on Chakras and Koshas, I can see myself walking through the doors to enter a whole new world of wisdom, as I realized, Yoga is no longer a mere flexibility tool or a cardio program to brag one’s accomplishment of higher sets of soorya namaskars in a day. I was left convinced- ‘Yoga is a Breath of Awareness to nurture my Emotional Well being’
As I progressed reading, I was left with awe for the amount of research that had gone in to writing this book, the highlight of the book being its precise profundity. The handbook shall easily be my ‘go-to’ guide for aasana references and chakra and kosha interpretations.
Kudos to the young author, dearest Sejal Shah and looking forward for more such gems, making it a series of wellness publications.