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I have always been a rebel and have never been complacent to the ideologies placed upon me. You can credit that to Fire in my birth chart or a mother in academia who was more progressive than most in those times. 

 

Before I get into the three career switches, I should explain my background. I was born as the youngest of three siblings in New Delhi, India. We lived in a joint family and then moved to the suburbs and had a nuclear family. My Dad was sick for a year in our new home and passed away when I was 7 years old. This was tragic but different for me. I felt more for my mother than missing my father. At that age, I did not know the role of a father in the family. My mom, older sister, and older brother kept me shielded. Only when I saw my relatives or friends with their fathers that I would try to make sense of it but couldn’t really fully understand. But, it awakened my spiritual gifts of channeling, mediumship, changing the weather, poetry in English, singing, etc. I loved spending time in nature not knowing that I was connecting to my father there and with these gifts. With time and other pressures, many of those abilities went dormant until later in life. 

 

I completed my schooling at a Christian school in a predominantly Hindu country. I was a good student. We were to speak in English, or we were fined even during lunch breaks. So, I have difficulty even to this day counting in Hindi. I loved participating in all co-curricular activities and was popular enough to become the house prefect and the runner-up for the Miss SFS pageant. 

 

My undergrad and grad degrees were in Math from a very reputed college on the North Campus of Delhi University. My good looks were the reason, my mom forced me to join an only girls college. Safer that way!! But, no matter how much our parents try to protect us, misery will find us eventually. I was not particularly interested in Math and wanted to do fashion designing, journalism or economics but these ideas were not entertained by my mom. Since, my sister did Math and this subject had more value, so it seemed only the right path for me in her eyes. No matter how much I tried, my mom would not let me change my major. I did not get into engineering or do extremely well in my boards exams, as my sister’s wedding happened right around that time. Missing and crying for her is all I did. So, I became my worst enemy with not many choices left

career-wise. I was told office jobs have longer hours, more commitment and don’t help in raising one’s family. So, I had no choice but to struggle with Math. I crammed everything, never understood it really, and almost had a nervous breakdown in my second year of undergrad but managed to do fine overall and pursue higher education. That is how one gets tough!! 

 

So, back to my career. Started as a Math school teacher briefly in New Delhi, India. All the younger children loved me but I looked too young to be taken seriously by High schoolers. I wore a sari to look older. Tell me to wear one now and I would run the other way. Not sure how I handled that in public transport buses which used to be full to the brim. 

 

Then I became an IT professional for 20 years with some big multinationals on the software and Business Analyst side. Well, there is a whole story behind this change as it involves me getting married and moving to the US. It was an arranged marriage and my husband is a very nice person who has supported me in everything. I had to stay behind for three months without my husband till my immigration process happened while I was pregnant with my first child at the age of 23. Let’s just say, not many were kind to me at that time. My marriage abroad meant I left behind my entire support structure behind and my education did not matter in the US. To top this, I married into a family who projected all their insecurities onto me, controlled, manipulated and abused me. I missed my own family in India even more for that reason. We decided to move away from them into our own rental apartment and I had to ignore the outside noise, keep my head down, keep quiet and focus on building a good life for this child that we had brought into this world. So, I pursued my master's in computer science as that would bring in a good job, starting while my firstborn was less than 2 months old. I took care of him and went to school at night. Internships with extremely good employers followed. I was somehow able to juggle it all because my purpose was very strong. I did graduate and was very lucky to work in highly rated multinational companies, growing in career and doing very well financially. This gig lasted for almost two decades during which I had my second son also. We were a happy complete nuclear family. I had the satisfaction that my sons had each other in this unfamiliar world which we called home. But, as they say - good things do come to an end. 

 

That started my current innings as an artist, author and healer. Why that happened is a whole unfolding of one tragic situation after another. You can also call it my spiritual awakening. Our success as a family started to make our close circle very jealous, they went out of their way to harm us emotionally, psychologically and otherwise. At the workplace I faced all kinds of abuse at the hands of my managers, coworkers and people in power. I was used to staying quiet but even when I spoke up I was not supported at work. On the other hand, my family responsibilities were growing, I had no support structure, and my sons needed me to help shape their future. I was getting burnt out with the deliverables of the job and family so I quit work at the peak of my career making a six-figure salary. By God’s grace, they have both grown to become very successful in their fields but more so they are extremely good human beings. 

 

My mom was also getting older and hiding her problems from me. It weighed heavy on my heart. My intuition grew tenfold as a result of it and I started to get downloads from my father who was in spirit to help her. I tried but being in two different continents could not do much. I believed everyone around her could but was very disappointed in them as they had other agendas. She did pass away under tragic circumstances in 2017 which led me to speak up for the first time about people’s wrongdoing. What seems natural was not natural for me. People were used to me not standing up for myself and controlling my narrative. I had always traded safety for people-pleasing to avoid conflict. To top it I had no one to speak up on my behalf. All my time was spent caring for my own family and meeting the unending demands of the extended family. So did not have time or the energy left to build a friend circle. My speaking up against anyone for their wrongdoings was labeled as rebellion and I was punished by everyone around me to force me to fit into other people’s wants and expectations. As I felt isolated, gaslighted, manipulative, publicly humiliated and betrayed, I started to get very sick. My doctor said they had no cure for me. I started to lose my confidence, stopped driving, my brain was foggy, my marriage became rocky and there was no one to call for help even during my low times. This went on for some years when I was sure I would not make it alive. But, I had my children who needed me, I could not abandon them like I was after my Dad’s passing. So, I stayed around, although not at my best but my worst self. 

 

There must have been a Divine plan to save me. My dormant psychic abilities started to open up in a big way and I woke up to my multi-dimensional self in 2015. I was composing Hindi and Urdu poetry expressing the truths that I was facing. Hindi was not my strength and Urdu I have only heard in ghazals or in old Bollywood songs so I was definitely channeling them. Even to this day I need an expert to fix my written words and google the meaning of certain words that I have composed in my poetry. I made a CD out of my first few poems. My cooking became phenomenal, not just delicious but nourishing the soul. I also started automatic writing in English about my issues and found solutions on how to overcome them. As I wrote them and published them on social media, my own issues started to disappear one after another. I put them all into a self-published self-help book in 2015. More books and videos followed. I needed a cover for my first book, so felt guided to paint around that time. I had not painted since I was a child and the desire came out of thin air but was my happy place. Painting put me in the present, was meditative and I felt a Divine connection when I did this, it seemed like I was in a different realm far away from all that I did not like. So I continued painting because it gave me an environment to be myself. I started exhibiting my work, selling them, getting appreciation for my work and doing art workshops where people felt healed. Again I faced opposition where I was discredited for not being a trained artist, not meaning what I was saying, not being spiritual enough, and not being a good person by people who wished to suppress me. It worked for them and all my opportunities were taken away from me. 

 

As a result, I stopped caring and that led me to learn from experts in the Healing industry. I needed to be certified for what I had been doing forever so people would not undermine my abilities. By the grace of God, these healing methodologies and self-improvement courses started to heal all my traumas completely. Those past traumas do not control me now. I am in a happier place, more authentic and not guilty, ashamed, blaming, or angry about what happened to me. Many people came into my life, some named here, some not. They all made their choices about me knowingly. Although they are not part of my life anymore, they taught me tough lessons of “what not to do and who not to be”, so that I could grow to become who I am today. I understand my life purpose much better now. I am a wounded healer and am here to ease out the pain of those who may be struggling like I did only some time back. That is the reason for forming Saral Seva Trust. If you feel called to me, please feel free to reach out. Thank you.