Ila Asthana

Hi! My name is Ila Asthana. I am a Certified Marriage Coach & Family Therapist from NNCA, Singapore. I am also a Certified Mental Health First Aider (MHFA) from Mental Health First Aid India. I am the Founder & Director of the organisation — World of Upbringing, Nurturing Values.

Until 23, thanks to my childhood and adolescent experiences, I was totally against the concept of marriage and never trusted it as an institution. But life turned the tables after the arrival of my partner, Karthik. Today, the mission of World of Upbringing is to empower unmarried and married individuals and couples to sail through the ups and downs of partnering to parenting.

World of Upbringing is an end-to-end online marriage and relationship school offering affordable relationship care. How to work on oneself, how to choose a partner, how to navigate the courtship period, how to be mentally and emotionally prepared for married and family life, how to balance professional and personal life, how to create an intimate relationship with your partner, and how to succeed at parenting — all in this space.

As an aspiring postpartum doula, I also help new parents navigate their postpartum journey and work through couple intimacy after becoming parents.

I facilitate this through 1-1 online consultations with personalised attention to the individual or couple, and through group coaching — recorded and live workshops on topics of pre-marriage and post-marriage life such as emotional regulation, boundaries and boundary management, money management as a couple, and couple communication.

I am a North Indian, born and brought up in Chennai for 27 years, currently based in Bangalore after marrying into a TamBrahm family — a perfect blend of different and diagonally opposite cultures in India. I speak English, Tamil, Hindi and Telugu, and I understand Kannada and Gujarati. I travel across cities in India for sessions in schools, colleges, corporate organisations, NGOs and private gated community gatherings.

You can follow me on Instagram at@worldupbringing for weekly updates on sessions, consultations and new flagship programs.