The Mental Compass

Written By : Ms. A. Gayathri Special Educator and Academic Consultant A. Gayathri is a seasoned education professional and special educator with more than two decades of experience in inclusive education, learning disabilities, counselling, and psychotherapy. She has served as a special educator, NIOS consultant, lecturer, vocational trainer, and educational consultant across reputed schools, universities, and trusts in Tamil Nadu. Her work reflects strong expertise in special education and teacher training. She has been honoured with multiple state and national awards for her outstanding contributions to the field of education. NIOS is often labeled as the last option, but in truth, it is an inclusive educational system that provides flexible and meaningful learning opportunities for diverse academic learners. NIOS is often misunderstood as a “last option” in education; however, in reality, it is one of the most inclusive systems designed to support diverse academic learners. This per...

Whether it's Van Gogh, Edward Munch, Sylvia Plath or Virginia Woolf, none could escape the turmoil their minds put them into. What bred their creative output? Could they still have produced their works if they weren't in a poor mental state? Is artistic creativity only tied to poor mental health outcomes or is there more to it. Let's dive into it and know from one of the well-known psychological perspectives: The Jungian Psychology.   Our mind only creates something new from what already exists inside them. It works from what enters it through experience, memory, and instinct. Every brain is different, shaped by genetics and by what it goes on to experience uniquely, and so each one chooses on its own what and how much data it allows to enter. This entering of data into our brains is largely determined by our 'sensitivity' (your capacity to notice, process and react deeply to your environment) and a personality trait called 'openness to experience ' (your c...

On childhood battlegrounds, silent solidarity, and the enduring language of sibling love. Written by Ms. Gurneet Kaur Jaitly, Counselling Psychologist “Give it to me!” “Mum, they started it!” “I’m never talking to you again!” If you grew up with a sibling, these childhood battle cries are etched into your memory. Siblinghood in the early years is loud, messy, and fiercely territorial. It is built on epic showdowns over the television remote, tactical negotiations for the last piece of chocolate, and dramatic threats of lifelong silence, only to be found whispering conspiracies together five minutes later under a makeshift blanket fort. That is the paradoxical magic of growing up side by side: it effortlessly holds burning irritation and fierce, unshakeable loyalty in the very same breath. The Keepers of Our Origins Long before resumes, carefully curated social feeds, and the heavy armor of adulthood defined who we are, a sibling knew the unvarnished version of us. They were our first c...

There may be moments from the past that when you recall today, may seem magical. An old photograph that appears in your gallery. A familiar song starts playing. You catch the smell of something that you haven’t experienced in years and suddenly, you’re back in the memories; at school, on a college trip, maybe sitting with old friends or even living through a chapter of your life that you haven’t thought about in years. For a moment, it feels like everything was simpler back then, maybe, even better. And then we often find ourselves saying, “Those were the best days,” or “Things were so much better back then.”  But were they really? Maybe not. Maybe our minds have been simply good at remembering the past in a certain way. We don’t remember the past exactly as it happened At times, we tend to think of memory as a recording: something happens, our brain stores it and we retrieve it later. But cognitive psychology tells us that autobiographical memory is more reconstructive than that. ...

Meera was fifty-three when she finally admitted to herself that loneliness inside a marriage felt heavier than loneliness outside it. After thirty years of smiling through silences that cut deeper than words, she walked out, not because she wanted freedom, but because she wanted peace. The world whispered that starting over at her age was foolish, but she was tired of shrinking herself to fit into a life that no longer felt like hers. Healing came slowly, like sunlight leaking through curtains after a long night. She learned to eat alone without feeling abandoned. She learned that choosing herself was not selfishness but survival. And she learned to sit with grief without letting it define her. On a rainy Tuesday, at a community library class she joined just to feel less invisible, she met Arvind, a quiet man with kind eyes and a history full of bruised edges. He, too, carried a past that had taught him love could be conditional and companionship could turn into captivity. They spoke l...

Have you ever seen God? My social studies teacher posed this question to me when I was in sixth grade, while studying the Ramayana and various other historical works. Out of curiosity, I asked her, "Since these mythological books refer to God and, as a matter of course, God exists, why are we discussing the origin of God?" She replied that we can view these texts as moral lessons to guide our own behavior, in which case the psychological value of the lesson remains meaningful regardless of underlying theological debates. Well, God felt completely real to me then. How could anyone refuse to acknowledge the creator of our world? Yet, a few moments later, my mind turned to Darwin's theory of evolution. Since science provides an empirical framework for understanding our physical origin, what then is the role of belief? How do we understand the deities seated in our mandirs? Over time, I came to realize a subtle shift in perspective: while objective proofs of the transcendent ...

There was a time when playing cricket required absolutely nothing except a bat, a ball and enough friends to form two teams. The bat could be a piece of wood. The wickets could be three bricks. The boundary could be an imaginary line that somehow everyone agreed upon until someone hit the ball too far. And the rules? They changed depending on who was winning. Nobody needed a fitness tracker. Nobody was recording their strike rate. Nobody was asking whether playing cricket would improve their résumé. We simply played. Today, the picture looks a little different. We have group chats full of people saying, “We should meet sometime,” followed by weeks of absolutely nothing. We watch professional athletes exercise on screens while sitting comfortably on our sofas. We order food instead of walking to get it. We scroll through videos of people playing sports, but somehow struggle to find the time to play ourselves. And perhaps the strangest part is that we have never been more connected digit...

Written by : Ms. Blessy Jenifer Joannah. H Counselling Psychologist and Student Counsellor Blessy Jenifer Joannah H. is a Counselling Psychologist and Student Counsellor at RCM Matriculation School, Avadi. Her professional work and research focus on adolescent mental health, with a strong interest in understanding the emotional and psychological challenges faced by today’s adolescents. She is deeply committed to supporting young minds through counselling, awareness, and early intervention. The start of a new year is often viewed as a fresh beginning, especially for students entering into a new academic phase. With new schedules and higher expectations. The students are encouraged to aim higher and achieve more.  Although goal setting is seen as an encouraging step for the students, the importance of being emotionally prepared to handle these expectations is often neglected. When emotional growth is ignored the new year can quickly shift from the source of motivation to a period of ...

The five senses are essential for how we physically navigate the world, but they also have a powerful psychological impact on how we interpret and remember it. Sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell all shape perception, but among them, smell is especially closely linked to emotion and memory. The sense of smell helps us detect danger, recognise familiar environments, and even influences appetite and attraction. In addition to the basic biology, scent has a special place within the psychology of the senses, as it relates to processes of emotion and memory. Scent is a sense in which meaning precedes conscious understanding. Imagine the smell of freshly baked bread, a perfume wafting through a room from an unseen source, or the smell of rain on earth. Each of these does far more than create an olfactory sensation in the brain; each creates an emotional response as well. Scent triggers emotions and memories associated with them, creating our experiences of other people and the world around...