Shefali Sood was crowned Miss Diva Supranational 2019 on 26th September 2019 and went onto represent India at Miss Supranational 2019 stage. She was appreciated for her strong performance but made it to the Top 25 at the end of the event finale. Shefali worked hard for three years, missed her parents, sacrificing all her favorites just to ensure a perfect, disciplined and fit body for the competition and even though she didn’t win the title but she surly made a mark at the beauty pageant world as one of the successful representative of India.
Shefali is undoubtedly a beauty with a purpose diva. She teaches the underprivileged kids at various NGOs and orphanages and has worked towards spreading the importance of educating a child for a brighter tomorrow. Shefali espouses mental health as she understood the stigma surrounding mental health in India and in most parts of the world and is extending her hand in wiping out the same by conducting national and international campaigns. She believes that a safe space of expression should be created for everyone to ensure peace and self-belief.
Recently, India’s one of the finest actor Sushant Singh Rajput committed suicide in his apartment in Mumbai evoked the discussion around Mental Health as he was assumed to be in depression and lonely when he decided to take this step. Since then, the people at position have been trying to vocalize the stigma around Mental Health in the hope that no one feels the way he did.
Being an advocate for Mental Health, Shefali took to her social media and shared her views on the same. She posted a long video in which she spoke about how much it is important for everyone to understand the importance of Mental Health especially in the given times. Shefali started off by saying that the people went awoke about Mental Health after the sudden demise of the actor who everyone looked up to and enjoyed watching on small-screen as well as the big-screen. She added that with this, we should understand that there are so many people around the world who are struggling just the way he did and no one knows about it because talking about mental health is still considered as taboo in the community.
Shefali clarifies that she is not a professional but she will try to equip the ones watching with the little understanding of mental health and the tools that she has acquired in the past few years as working for mental health. She further mentioned that the terminology that is used by the people in general just clouds over the real issues or someone’s idea of mental health. She stated this with an example; “When someone is feeling sad, they’d say ‘I am feeling depressed’ instead of saying that they are having a bad day or they’re sad. This just clouds over the normal people’s assumption about mental health because when a person who is genuinely dealing or struggling with depression is just assumed to be sad or having a bad day.” She urged everyone to stop casually throwing these terms and start to educate oneself about the mental health issues.
The diva mentioned that she feels immense amount of sadness that something like Mental Health which should be known by everyone is treated as an untouchable topic and she explains with an example from a Bollywood movie that came out a few years ago, “Dear Zindagi” starring Alia Bhatt and Shah Rukh Khan in which Shah Rukh Khan plays the character of a psychologist and states that when we get hurt we go to the doctor then if something doesn’t feel right in the mind, why do we hesitate from consulting a professional? Why do we treat our minds different? Shefali adds that she believes that people should understand that it’s okay not to be okay and if someone needs help with their mind they should and no one should judge them. Shefali also talks about the toxic environment the society has created for the people who struggles with mental health issue. She explains that there is so much competition, insecurities, and comparisons that one might never know what could trigger the person as mental health illness is a buildup of little situations, things, sayings etc. Lastly, she urged everyone to stay positive, strong, and reach out to people if they feel like they need someone to talk to. She also asked people to create a safe space and environment for everyone and be kind to each other.
You can watch her video here: