Shrea Kukreja is atypically passionate about life, as she literally lives by personifying her emotions. A near death experience, an early loss and constant conflicts in her mind, in a way lead her to writing Soul Spoken, initially as a vent.
She started subconscious reflection as a core transformational journey into the personal self, when she began emotionally characterizing situations to overcome and break barriers which were self-created.
She is a successful Marketer as well as an Author driven by ambition quoting, “Once we construct a definite horizon over indefinite limits, is when we have our constrictions broken”.
TBE: Can you tell us a little about your autobiography, ‘Soul Spoken’? What prompted you to write this?
Shrea Kukreja: Soul Spoken is a place where experiences are narrated from the lens of living emotions. Soul Spoken was conceptualized in a time when I began analyzing the self, to bring peace to my conflicting thoughts. I was driven to understand how my past experiences had shaped my behavior and the reason for my irrational reactions over certain situations. I also wanted to bring myself to a stage where I was aware of my every emotion, and achieve intrinsic happiness.
Soul Spoken expresses true and unaltered thoughts of a young girl as she goes about her daily activities in her life, experiencing new interactions, relationships and the conflicts that come with them. Moreover, it is based on the thoughts of a girl having an emotive personality and her journey to break from her inhibitions, create balance in her desires and tranquilize behavioral extremity.
Emotions for me always flow in a rhyme, and therefore Soul Spoken has been written in a poetic manner which helps readers experience them in a way that they are alive.
TBE: What was your writing process for this book? What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?
Shrea Kukreja: “Writing is my way to convert emotional hyperreactivity into constructive productivity”.
Writing is my free expression tool, which also helps me break down and analyze my thoughts and feelings. The process of pending down the stories in Soul Spoken was the result of “in the moment” emotions, when I started taking conceptual notes, as and when my heart would speak to me.
My clarity of thought always comes when I am in motion, I would often take drives, and make myself open to consuming new experiences so that I could learn and write about them. Soul Spoken was written with the essence of sheer vulnerability of the self, expressing open wounds, self-inflicted conflicts, and life with a passionate heart within its young mind.
Soul Spoken has taken me on a journey of discovering and accepting my feelings by understanding the reason for my actions and reactions. I would call this period, a time of intense self-contemplation, a place from which I not only gifted a wonderful book under my name, but also to have brought me closer to myself.
TBE: During your journey from the idea of this book to the publication, what was the most difficult thing you faced? Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Shrea Kukreja: As a premiering Author, the toughest thing in the process of being ready to pitch Soul Spoken for publishing was the core optimism in the book. It took me time to let go of fearing that the worst would happen once the book was published.
There were three questions that consumed, Would I do well? What would the world think? Would Soul Spoken get the appreciation it deserves?
The strongest thing you should have before starting a new journey is Belief, without thinking about the future. So, I started trusting myself, the book, promised to give my all and commit to my future of being an Author and the face of Soul Spoken.
TBE: How was your publishing experience with Leadstart?
Shrea Kukreja: I characterize my publishing journey with Leadstart as purposeful, bringing Soul Spoken to life with collaborative and constructive teamwork. We have had a close synergistic relationship towards the creativity & strategy involved in the books production.
Right from my editor who I absolutely adore, the design team, my project manager to the Marketing team, I have been helped in detail with any queries, suggestions and the developments in Soul Spoken. Overall, I feel my book has been given justice and together we have worked and continue to do the best to bring my book to a point of Market Appreciation and more…
TBE: The magical interplay between the mind, heart and soul seems a huge theme in your book, how do you cultivate YOUR mind to interplay with your heart and soul?
Shrea Kukreja: The secret to creating an equilibrium between the opinions of the mind, heart and soul happens when you open your mind to actively listen to your emotions. There was a point when my reactions were primarily governed by my emotions. Soon, I felt that my soul would be able to achieve balance when it created an equal space for the mind and heart to interact with each other.
Soul Spoken speaks about those aspects of the self where its elements are controlled by extremity, towards the journey of making them work together as a holistic system. These are those experiences that talk from either the mind, heart or soul’s point of view, and a time when they finally break from the existing dissonance to a symbiotic sphere of respect.
TBE: What and who inspires you – could you share some stories with us?
Shrea Kukreja: I am inspired by Shakespeare’s stories, as they narrate the dailies of life soulfully. I have an instant attraction as nuances of his narration reflect a 360-degree view of characters, human behaviors, hidden motives, dark demeanors, and relationships in everyday circumstances that the common man would relate to and be empowered about the importance of understanding behavior that shapes lives around them. I used to often spend days immersed in understanding and watching his stories to analyze what actions led to the sequence of events which also led me to take my own journey towards understanding myself.
TBE: What is the message you want to share with the world through your book?
Shrea Kukreja: Soul Spoken expresses the importance of considering emotions as an equally important aspect of life as wealth, family, health and relationships. We often keep our emotions hidden and ignore what they tell us.
Through Soul Spoken I want people to accept their feelings and not hide from them, to understand them and not shove them under the carpet, to live with them and not cover them with instant happiness or material desires. I want everyone to know that our emotions are the ones that cause reactions, relationship breaks, demotivation, depression, mindful dissonance and once we know which feeling could have caused them, we can break the loop of doom that we often feel daily. This will also make us live healthier and wealthier lives as individuals and build harmony within communities.
TBE: Often in life, it’s our greatest challenges that make or break us. What do you think is the determining factor between whether we grow by our adversity or are destroyed by it?
Shrea Kukreja: The determining factor of an individual’s growth or destruction in times of adversity is not having spent enough time with oneself to understand the true reason of the adversities’ cause. Difficulty always brings an opportunity for evolution, and it’s us who have the choice to climb or to fall.
When the judgement day arrives to choose our path to break from the current destruction, we either give up and agree to the demise or seek a sympathetic and dependent approach to solving it. Before seeking help from others, we must believe that we have the power to solve it, and once we give up our insecurities and inhibitions, solutions will follow.
TBE: What would be the number one piece of advice you’d give to someone who is currently struggling with life?
Shrea Kukreja: The popular phrase that comes to my mind in this case is, “The grass is always greener on the other side”. As we grow, we consume experiences that create self-diminishing insecurities and inhibitions. When a person starts to struggle with their own life their aura turns black, the sky becomes grey, and our sorrow often defines our happiness. We begin to believe that this is our life and our destiny.
When we feel that the world would be a better place without us, that is when we should introspect the reason for self-contemplation and start walking the path to understanding the why’s and breaking these fallacies.
We should know that there is always a world for every individual, where they are accepted for their raw selves and where they can seek comfort. It Is when we find that place where we can be nurtured and be unconditional, is when a person will stop struggling with life.
TBE: We live in what often feels like a crazy and stressed-out world. What do you think the world most needs today?
Shrea Kukreja: I think the most important thing a person needs today is ‘time for themselves’. We stress as we no longer seem to have peace of mind, time for our hearts and pure comfort for our souls. All we need is time for our families without worry, a day for ourselves without needing to hurry to make money and a place in this world where there’s no judgement.
When pressures of others catch up, we are engulfed within a diminished quality of life. Comparison always makes us feel sorry for ourselves, being forced to run a race often makes us forget to listen and enjoy the church bells. I think in these times, an individual needs to empower themselves to be able to quickly find solutions to challenges of life such as self-inflicted misery & external treachery, and incline more towards living with honesty.
TBE: Is there anything you are currently working on that may intrigue the interest of your readers?
Shrea Kukreja: I am working on my new book, which I aim to publish in 2023. It speaks about stories inspired by millennial abbreviations, and exploring experiences based on the three most important aspects of life, in connection with these terms.
