THE SITA I GREW UP WITH

I published this one on my mother’s birthday, May 2. It is, in many ways, my little love letter to her—and to the beauty, wisdom, softness, and light within her that life may have quieted at times, but could never truly take away. 💛 

By now, my beautiful readers probably know that I have a growing love affair with connecting the stories of my own life to the wisdom I am still discovering in the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, and the wider yogic tradition. I say “still discovering” very intentionally. I am not writing from a mountaintop with every answer neatly tied in a bow. I am learning, remembering, questioning, studying and bringing all of you along with me. 🙂

Part of the reason is simple : somewhere inside these ancient stories, I keep finding very modern human beings. A woman asked to endure what she never deserved. A warrior frozen by fear. A mother raising children through uncertainty. A person trying to understand what is theirs to do when life becomes painfully complicated. And somewhere inside those stories, I keep finding pieces of my own.

I have come to believe that some of the hardest chapters of our lives leave clues. Not because pain is automatically sacred, and certainly not because suffering should be romanticized, but because what we survive can sharpen our discernment, deepen our compassion, reveal what we refuse to repeat, and quietly point us toward what we are here to protect, create, or change.

When I look back now, my life sometimes feels a little miraculous and, in places, almost cinematic. Not in a loud, warrior standing on a cliff with a sword kind of way. More like the quieter moments in the story of Rani Lakshmibai, the legendary Queen of Jhansi remembered for her extraordinary courage and resistance against British rule: the moment before courage becomes visible, when a woman simply decides that fear will not have the final word. The real magic, I think, often happens where no one is looking. It happens in the choices no one applauds.

The First Sita I Ever Knew

Long before I understood Sita as a sacred figure, I knew a woman who reminded me of her: my mother.

In the Ramayana, Sita is revered across Hindu traditions as a manifestation of Lakshmi, the Hindu goddess associated with prosperity, beauty, abundance, and divine grace and remembered for devotion, dignity, courage, purity of intention, endurance, and extraordinary inner strength. Her story contains divine beginnings, deep love, exile, abduction, public suspicion, motherhood, separation, and finally a return to the Earth from which she came. She is often described through the language of ideal womanhood and wifely devotion, but reducing her to obedience misses something essential. Sita chooses. She insists on accompanying her husband, Lord Rama, the revered prince of Ayodhya and an incarnation of Lord Vishnu, into fourteen years of exile. When she is later abducted by Ravana, the powerful ten-headed king of Lanka who becomes the central antagonist of the Ramayana, she refuses his advances again and again, remaining unwavering despite being held far from home. She protects the integrity of her own inner world even when the world around her becomes cruel. And in the end, she draws a line no one else gets to redraw for her.

That is the Sita who makes me think of my mother.

My mother was and still is a timeless beauty. Growing up, people often thought she was our sister, which my twin and I found equal parts amusing and unfair. ☺️ I am not someone who places too much importance on physical beauty; it is one of the most temporary things we are given. But hers was never only about a face. She even has a natural fragrance that reminds me of roses. There was a radiance to her, a softness, spirituality, intelligence, and an almost disarming innocence about people. She tended to assume goodness first.

That quality is beautiful. It can also become costly when it is offered without discernment.

Like Sita welcoming a disguised Ravana because she believed she was receiving a holy guest, my mother could be trusting in environments where trust had not yet been earned. I do not say that to make naivety sound foolish. Quite the opposite. There is something precious about a person whose first instinct is not suspicion. The lesson is simply that a good heart still needs a gate.

A New Country, an Old Human Story

My family came to the United States together when I was very young, carrying a version of the same hope so many immigrant families carry: work hard, build something meaningful, and create a brighter future. My mother left behind the familiarity of her own family and entered a country she was still learning how to navigate. I can hold that truth alongside another one: my parents did the best they knew how to do with the awareness and resources they had at the time.

What I watched most closely, though, was my mother.

She encountered family dynamics that, looking back as an adult, I would describe as deeply unhealthy and at times narcissistic in nature (I explore navigating these dynamics through boundaries, discernment, and self-trust in The Unexpected Teachers) : comparison, jealousy, control, projection, blurred boundaries, and kindness being treated less like a gift than an unlimited resource. Her beauty, intelligence, generosity, spirituality, and even the simple way she chose to live could become points of tension rather than celebration. Some of the very qualities she was once made to feel small for are qualities I now watch some of the same people try to adopt for themselves. Life has a funny way of circling back and humbling us in the process.

She experienced things I do not need to catalogue here. Some stories belong in protected rooms, not on a public page.

What matters for this reflection is what repeated exposure to those dynamics can do to a person. When people hear the same limiting messages long enough, especially from those they expected to love, guide, or protect them, fear can begin to sound like truth. Other people’s projections can slowly become the voice inside your own head.

And I want to be honest about where that can lead, because I do not believe in making suffering sound prettier than it was. After years of being bullied, shamed, undermined, and psychologically worn down by people who should have treated her with love and dignity, I have watched the effects remain with my mother long after many of those moments themselves passed. When someone is repeatedly made to question their worth, their instincts, or even their right to take up space, the harm does not always end when the person causing it leaves the room. Sometimes their voice stays behind. And sometimes, without anyone consciously intending it, the pain travels further—into marriages, homes, and the children growing up inside them. I know this because I was on the receiving end of some of that pain too. It took me years to understand that what reaches a child is sometimes the echo of something that began long before them.

That may be one of the hardest things for me to witness as her daughter. There are parts of the woman I know—her wisdom, spirituality, intelligence, softness, and natural joy—that were made smaller over time by people who had no right to make her feel small. I cannot rewrite what happened to her, but I can refuse to pretend it did not matter. I can remind her of who she was before other people tried to tell her who she should be. And I can do my part to make sure those patterns do not quietly continue through me—by maintaining distance where it is necessary, speaking honestly when silence would only protect the pattern, doing the inner work to recognize what I may have inherited, and choosing differently in the relationships I build. Understanding where something came from does not mean I have to carry it forward.

I watched my mother give, forgive, accommodate, and keep going. Saying no was not a language she had been taught fluently. She had compassion in abundance; boundaries took longer.

And still, she did not stop loving.

Perhaps that is another reason I have become so protective of my voice: I know what it can cost a person when theirs is slowly taken from them.

Sita Was Exiled Twice

One of the details of Sita’s story that becomes more powerful the older I get is that the famous fourteen-year exile was not hers alone: Rama was sent away from Ayodhya, and Sita chose to accompany him, with his devoted younger brother, Lakshmana, joining them. During that forest exile, Ravana abducted Sita and held her in Lanka. She endured separation and pressure without surrendering herself to him.

But Sita’s story did not simply resolve when she returned to Ayodhya. In the final part of the Ramayana, Sita faces another devastating separation. Pregnant, she is sent away from Ayodhya following public doubts about her time in captivity and eventually finds refuge at the ashram of Sage Valmiki, the revered sage traditionally credited with composing the Ramayana. (An ashram is a spiritual community and place of learning under the guidance of spiritual teachers. I had the beautiful experience of living in one myself during my Yoga TTC.) There, she gives birth to twin sons, Luv and Kush.

My mother also gave birth to twins, two girls instead of two boys. So yes, in our family I reserve the right to smile at that little piece of cosmic poetry. 🥰

There is another little piece of this story that feels especially beautiful to me now. When my sister and I were young, my mother was actually the one who introduced us to the story of Luv and Kush. She would have us watch the Ramayana series about the twins and learn from the beauty and wisdom woven through it. I understood the story as a child, but I certainly could not have known that years later, I would return to it and see so much of her reflected in Sita.

What moves me most about this part of the Ramayana is not the symmetry. It is what happens next. Sita has once again lost the life she knew, this time while carrying her children. Yet Luv and Kush are not raised only inside the story of what was done to their mother.

Under Valmiki’s guidance, the twins grew into intelligent and gifted young men, immersed in sacred knowledge and dharma, the wisdom of the Vedas (scriptures), music, poetry, and the art of recitation. Later traditions also celebrate them as courageous young warriors skilled in archery and battle. Perhaps most remarkably, they learned the Ramayana itself, eventually becoming gifted storytellers who recited the epic, the story of their own family, before Rama.

There is something breathtaking in that: the children of a painful chapter become carriers of wisdom, art, memory, beauty, and truth.

What the Quiet Child Was Learning

I was an extremely inquisitive child. I noticed patterns, moods, contradictions, and tiny changes in people long before I had adult language for any of it. My mother, I think, sensed that I carried this kind of perception, but she never made a performance out of it. Neither did I. Mostly, it meant I asked a lot of questions and occasionally possessed a level of honesty that could make a family gathering…interesting. 😂

As an adult, and through some genuinely transformative therapy work, I have learned to understand my own neurodivergence through a far more appreciative lens. Neurodivergent people are not one uniform group, and strengths differ enormously from person to person, but research increasingly recognizes that some neurodivergent profiles can include powerful forms of divergent thinking, intense curiosity, deep pattern recognition, creativity, empathy, persistence, and unusually focused problem-solving.

For me, the lesson has been not to suppress the way my mind notices the world, but to develop the discernment and responsibility to use it well.

Because awareness without responsibility can become ego. Intuition without humility can become certainty about things we do not actually know. And power, whether it comes through intelligence, influence, beauty, money, spirituality, a platform, or simply the ability to see what others miss, asks something of us.

The question is not only, “What can I see?” It is: “What will I do with what I see?”

When Distance Becomes a Form of Love

This is where my mother’s story taught me something Sita’s story also quietly holds: sometimes healing requires a different environment.

We often speak about family as though proximity itself proves love. It does not. Healthy family relationships can absolutely be repaired, strengthened, and transformed. But when a system repeatedly survives by ignoring boundaries, rewarding silence, or asking one person to keep absorbing what everyone else refuses to examine, some form of distance can become necessary. That distance might mean firmer boundaries, less access, fewer explanations, more privacy, or in some situations, stepping away altogether.

Not as punishment. Not as revenge. As room to hear your own mind again.

Sita’s refuge in Valmiki’s ashram did not erase what had happened to her. It gave the next chapter somewhere else to grow.

I think about that often. Today I have a small, private, strong support system in my life, and I understand what a privilege that is. I sometimes wish my mother had been surrounded by the right people at the exact moment she needed them most, people who could have reflected her worth back to her without needing anything from it.

Because the right community does not need to dim you to feel bright. It does not copy your light, compete with it, or keep plucking at it for fuel. It helps you protect it.

My Mother Never Learned the Art of No. I Did. 😁

This may be one of the clearest ways pain can leave a clue to purpose.

My mother taught me generosity. Life taught me discernment. Therapy taught me boundaries. Yoga taught me to watch the mind. And the Bhagavad Gita keeps asking me one of my favorite questions in different forms: What is the right action here?

In Chapter 4, Lord Krishna tells Arjuna that wisdom includes seeing “inaction in action and action in inaction.” This was one of those teachings that stayed with me from our weekly Gita philosophy sessions during my Yoga TTC because it challenged something I had misunderstood in my own life too: doing nothing is not always the same as doing no harm.

Arjuna gives us such a powerful example. Standing on the battlefield, overwhelmed by the thought of fighting people he loves and respects, he wants to put down his bow and walk away. From his perspective, refusing to fight appears to be the more peaceful and morally innocent choice. But Krishna challenges him to look deeper. Walking away and doing nothing would still be a choice and a choice with consequences. Arjuna could not escape responsibility simply by refusing to act.

The other side of the teaching is just as beautiful. Arjuna could act fully and courageously without being inwardly consumed by the action. Krishna teaches him to fulfill what is his to do without ego and without clinging to the outcome. In that sense, there can be a kind of inaction within action: outwardly, you are doing what needs to be done; inwardly, you are not trying to control everything that follows.

That changed something for me. Goodness does not always look passive, agreeable, or endlessly accommodating. Sometimes the loving thing is to speak. Sometimes it is to intervene. Sometimes it is to stop participating in a pattern. And sometimes it is simply to do what is yours to do with the clearest intention you can and then let go of what happens next.

Learning this helped me recognize truths in my own life that I had not yet known how to name, and it continues to shape both the way I use my voice and the work I do today.

My mother was not always able to say what needed to be said in the environments she was navigating. I can. Using that ability thoughtfully, for her, for myself, and sometimes for people I may never even meet, has become one of the most meaningful parts of my life. Not because I want to fight every battle. I absolutely do not. But because silence and peace are not always the same thing.

The Gita does not teach Arjuna to act from rage, ego, or the hunger to win approval. Krishna keeps bringing him back to dharma: right action, clear intention, and freedom from obsessive attachment to the result. That distinction matters to me. I do not want a voice that simply becomes louder. I want one that becomes cleaner.

The Durga Part of the Story

Perhaps this is also why I have come to appreciate the symbolism behind the spiritual name NavaDurga, which I received during my Yoga TTC, in a much more personal way.

In my writing on Goddess Durga, I explored her as the Divine Mother who embodies courage, compassion, protection, beauty, self-mastery, and unwavering inner strength. She carries many weapons, but every weapon is symbolic. Her strength is not there for spectacle, dominance, or recognition. It exists in service of something greater: the protection of what is sacred and the courage to confront what causes harm.

That distinction, between having power and knowing how to use it, has become increasingly important to me.

What They Did Not Know Was Growing in the Background

I have seen a lot in my life, and much of it I watched quietly from the background. I still try to look at the world with something of the innocent child intact, not because I am unaware of darkness, but because I refuse to let darkness become the only thing I know how to see.

There is already enough ugliness in the world. But there is also an astonishing amount of beauty, and I think we can train ourselves to notice it: the right person arriving at the right time, the stranger who protects someone without needing credit, the teacher who gives you language for something you have felt for years, the friend who tells you the truth with love, the tiny synchronicities that make life feel enchanted again.

Protect that part of yourself. The part that still looks for treasure.

The people around my mother years ago could not have known what all of those experiences were quietly teaching her daughters. They could not have known that the child watching from the corner was learning about power, silence, compassion, fear, boundaries, projection, loyalty, and the cost of giving away your own authority.

And I could not have known it either.

I do not believe I was being prepared to become some grand, untouchable version of myself. That idea does not interest me. I think I was being prepared to become freer. More discerning. More responsible with my voice. More capable of loving people without abandoning myself in the process.

That feels miraculous enough.

Pain Is Not the Purpose. But It May Point Toward It.

This is the part I hope you carry with you.

I do not believe every painful experience “happens for a reason.” Sometimes something was simply unfair. Sometimes another person made a harmful choice. Sometimes life breaks your heart and there is no spiritual sentence beautiful enough to make that okay.

But what happens next still belongs, at least in part, to you.

Your pain may reveal what you care about fiercely. Your fear may show you where freedom is asking to be built. The pattern you finally refuse to repeat may become the very thing you help someone else recognize. The support you never received may teach you how to create a healthier community. The voice you once swallowed may become a voice that brings clarity without cruelty.

That is different from glorifying suffering. It is alchemy.

And perhaps that is one of the quiet miracles of Sita’s story too. Her sons did not inherit only exile. They inherited wisdom. They learned sacred teachings, music, memory, discipline, and the story itself. What had been lived in pain became something that could be sung, understood, and carried forward differently.

Maybe that is what my mother has given me too.

Not a perfect story. A living one.

A story that taught me kindness without self-erasure. Faith without blindness. Beauty without worshipping appearances. Compassion with discernment. Strength without performance. And integrity, the kind that means telling the truth when necessary and understanding that another person’s pain is not ours to borrow, perform, or quietly rewrite as our own. Some stories are ours to tell. Others are ours to respect. Perhaps most importantly, it taught me the responsibility to use what I have been given well.

My mother may not have had the language, support, or freedom to use her voice in all the ways she deserved. But I do now. And every time I use it with love, integrity, and intention, I like to think a little piece of her gets freer too.

Queen Sita would understand. 👑

REFLECTION

• What has one of your hardest chapters taught you about what matters most to you?
• Is there a pattern you inherited that you are now being asked to carry differently?
• Where might your pain contain a clue, not to why you deserved it, but to what you want to protect, create, or change from here?

If something in this reflection resonated with what you are navigating or reminded you of a woman, mother, daughter, friend, or family story of your own, I would love to hear what it brought up for you. You are always welcome to share this with someone who may need the reminder that a difficult chapter does not get to write the entire story.

And if you enjoy exploring the places where ancient Hindu wisdom, modern life, self-awareness, and our very human experiences meet, stay connected. I am learning alongside you..

One story at a time. 💛